Fury and Hope
by Ghrelt
Summary: Max leaves the Citadel because he doesn't know how to be with people anymore. Something always draws him back, though, and maybe someday he'll decide to stay... Rated M for language and later smut. (Furiosa/Max) Takes place during the year immediately following Fury Road.
1. The First Return

_**A/N: I do not own or hold the rights to anything in regards to the Mad Max franchise. I doubt I could do it justice if I did.**_

 _This is the first time I've ever written in the present tense. Usually I don't even like reading stories that are in the present tense, but I tried to write it in the past tense and ended up having to change it three pages in. I think it suits the immediacy of the film better this way. In any case, any constructive criticism is welcome. I have no beta, so any errors are my own._

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Furiosa rises above the crowd, a victorious conquering hero. She notices her partner, the Fool, is no longer by her side. Her eyes somehow know exactly where he is, there below in the crowd. He meets her gaze, nods acknowledgement. Her head bows in thanks. And understanding.

 _We did it. Together._

It is not until the platform comes to a stop at the upper level that the others notice he's gone.

"Where's Max?" asks Capable.

"Who?"

She doesn't even learn his name until he is gone.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She knows he's out there somewhere, though she doesn't think about him much.

She is far too busy trying to figure out how to feed thousands of people, scavenge parts from the swath of destruction they reaped through the desert, and somehow protect the settlement and the people she has claimed for her own.

Not to mention carefully disassembling a caustic mythology built around death.

They build a wall around the Citadel, protection for those who live and work down in the sand. Each and every person is interviewed, assessed, and assigned a job. They build shelters at the ground level. An infirmary. A school.

They move the rocks out of the way in the canyon and drag back the carcasses of the vehicles destroyed in their wake. They are lucky that most of those left trapped behind the wreckage of her War Rig in the canyon had killed each other. Those remaining are easily dispatched by Furiosa's scavengers. Many of the vehicles are salvaged, and the fleet slowly and painstakingly rebuilt.

Gastown is nearly defenseless, and Furiosa helps set up new leadership there. At the Bullet Farm they are better defended and it takes months of negotiating to build a new trade relationship, but now a version of the truce that existed between the three cities is re-established.

She has no intention of trying to control all three. The Citadel keeps her busy enough. They need each other, and the other cities fear the mighty Furiosa, who brought down three fleets and the leadership of the entire region in a day.

Her reputation is nearly mythical.

Furiosa assures the War Boys that they have earned their place in Valhalla, regardless of their manner of death. Their service is enough to gain them passage to the hallowed halls. She or the Sisters, as the former Wives call themselves now, ensure that one of them is available as Witness for each one. They pass not in a blaze of pain and destruction, but with a warm hand and kind eyes, and a voice assuring them that they are awaited. With each passing, the Witness reaches a hand up into the air, grasps something ethereal, and pulls it to her heart.

The War Boys still ride the rigs on supply runs, and guard the wall. They are still fierce, valued warriors.

But they no longer need to go out in a blaze of glory to be valued.

The message takes a long time to sink in.

All the while, she _knows_ he's out there, because he keeps sending things:

A caravan of refugees, with four working vehicles.

A man who was a college professor long ago, with a truck full of _books_ , of all things.

An old short bus with the oddest assortment of people, who somehow have two live chickens and a rooster.

None of the ones he sends ever know his name; they just tell of a strange gruff man of few words who directs them to the Citadel, telling them it's a place where they can be safe.

Those he sends are all good people. She doesn't know how he finds them out there.

So she doesn't think of him often, but occasionally he reminds her, in his way.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He doesn't know how long it's been. Months. Years, maybe?

No. Not years. He cut his hair last week. Only a few inches fell to the ground. Trimmed his beard too. One less thing to use against him in a fight. Nothing to grasp anymore.

He is tired.

The chain blew on his bike three days ago and he was forced to abandon it in the dunes. Bloody waste, that. Had to strip back down to the essentials he could carry. He'd been headed into a little settlement to resupply before heading back out.

Marauders had levelled the place. There was nothing left.

No water. No food. Just corpses, covered in flies.

Just another horror to add to his collection.

He hasn't eaten in three days, and he ran through the last of his water sometime yesterday. His feet drag as he trudges across the desert. He can see it now, far in the distance.

Or maybe it's just a mirage.

Something his fragile psyche invented?

It would be a welcome deviation from his usual delusions.

Somewhere ahead lies water and shelter.

And hope.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Imperator?"

She hates it when they call her that. Three months, and most have shaken the habit. The former War Boy before her is one of the older ones. Close to her age, maybe older. He's had more time to steep in Immortan Joe's bullshit.

"It's Furiosa. Please," she replies gently.

"Umm, yes. Ah, there's a problem at processing."

She sighs. It seems her days are made up entirely of a string of other people's problems.

"What is it?"

"New guy. Fell unconscious in the holding area. Doc figures it's dehydration. But when they checked him out, they found out he has a blood bag tattoo."

A tiny kernel of excitement grows in her chest. She ignores it.

"And…"

"He's labeled psychotic. Doc wants to know if we should cut him loose."

"Where is he?" she asks.

"In an isolation cell."

She breaks into a run and the Boy is left trailing behind her, wondering what it is that set her off.

Processing is where they assess and disarm anyone who wants to enter the Citadel. It keeps the wrong people out, helps resupply the settlement, and assigns all new citizens to their duties. Isolation is a set of cages for holding questionable individuals so Furiosa or one of the Sisters can decide whether to accept them or turn them out.

Each cage is big enough to fit a car and each is spaced beyond arms' reach from the next. The man in question is in the farthest one, slumped in a half-sitting position against the back with one hand cuffed to the bars above him.

The doctor is hovering outside the locked door. "Furiosa," he says. "Well?"

"You know if we cut him loose, he dies, right?" she asks with a dangerous edge to her voice.

The older man places his hands on his hips. "My first responsibility is to my patients. If this man is dangerous, I won't have him in the infirmary."

She drags her hand down over her face. Addams has always been difficult. He's not wrong though.

"Open the door," she instructs.

The War Boy dodges around them to follow her command, ignoring the glare the doctor shoots him.

"I advise against…"

"Noted," she replies, already stepping through the door.

It is Max, and he's lying there with his arm above him at an odd angle, and he is snoring.

Snoring.

Loudly.

He looks like the least threatening thing she's seen all week.

"He slept through being dragged in here?" she asks, gesturing around the cage.

"Yes, sir," replies the War Boy.

Max looks pale beneath the patina of dirt, and his lips are dry and cracked. Other than that, he looks very much the same: mismatched boots, scarf around his neck, even that dusty old one-armed jacket he seemed so attached to.

"Can we treat him for dehydration here?" she asks the doctor.

"If you think it's…"

"I do," she replies, and turns to face him. "This man was captured, tortured, and used for his _blood_. He was labeled psychotic because he fought back." She flashes back to getting hit in the face with a car door. "Whatever Joe used him for, he is not a _thing_. He is a _person_ , and we will treat him as such. Bring me the supplies and I will treat him myself."

The doctor leaves.

They are lucky to have the man, but he is frustrating to work with, to say the least.

"What's your name?" she asks the War Boy.

His face lights up. "Tread," he replies proudly.

"Tread," she says, "Can you please bring me some clean water?"

She just made his week, and he scurries off to do her bidding.

She squats down next to Max. Aside from the chapped lips, he looks like he's in pretty good shape. No bruises, or cuts, or bullet wounds that she can see.

He murmurs something in his sleep so she places a hand on his boot, shaking gently. "Max?" she says. No response. He is dead to the world.

Tread returns and hands her a full canteen almost reverently. She thanks him and he moves back to stand guard on the open door.

She pours out some water on her hand, using it to wet his forehead and cheeks. Her fingers come away brown, and leave streaks on his skin. Still he sleeps. He is too warm, and she wonders if he's in worse shape than she thought. She pours a tiny amount straight from the canteen to his lips. His mouth opens a fraction of a second before his eyes do.

She throws herself back out of reach, prepared for this reaction. Water sloshes across his leg, but she doesn't drop the canteen, and she is now sitting safely by his foot.

Whatever his first instinct was comes up short with the loud clanging of the handcuff against the cage. He blinks and looks around, but his vision is hazy.

"Max?" she says again, and he can barely hear it over the pounding in his head. He blinks hard, but all he sees is a dark shape before him.

"Water?" he asks, and she once again flashes back to their first meeting.

"Here," she says, holding it out. He grabs it with his left hand and slams it back, letting it pour down his throat and over his face.

"Slow down, Max. You're going to make yourself…"

He vomits into the empty corner of the cage next to him.

"That." She snatches the canteen out of his hand.

"Hey!" he says with a snarl as he swipes for the container.

"I'm only giving it back if you promise to drink it slowly."

The headache remains but he haze over his vision is receding. There is a woman sitting on her ass in the dust in front of him, clutching his precious water.

A woman with very short hair.

And a metal arm.

"Fury?" he asks.

No one has ever called her that. She is a _person_ , not a destructive emotion. There is more to her than anger. She grits her teeth as anger rises in her chest.

But there's something to his tone, the way his voice wraps around the word that feels almost like endearment.

The way he says it, the word sounds like _hope_.

She decides to allow it, and the anger ebbs away.

"Drink it slowly or I will take it back," she warns with a glare.

He takes the canteen gently from her hand and does as he's told, though he'd desperately like to tilt his head back and let the whole thing pour down his throat.

She sits patiently and watches.

He pulls the canteen from his lips, leaning his head back against the bars. His arm rattles in its restraint.

"Why am I handcuffed in a cage?" he asks calmly, his too-blue eyes stark against the brown of his skin.

"Not my idea," she informs him. "You passed out before they could figure out what to do with you, and your back has you listed as psychotic."

His forehead wrinkles in confusion.

"Your blood bag tattoo," she reminds him gently.

His eyes widen. "They wrote that I'm psychotic _in permanent ink on my back?_ " he asks, flabbergasted.

"I suppose you've never read it."

He shakes his head, gives her an odd look. "Bit difficult."

He does have a point.

"Tread, keys," she calls out behind her. The War Boy dutifully brings them, and they jangle as he presses them to her palm. She stands and leans over Max. "Besides," she says to him as she unlocks the cuffs, "You have a tendency to come up swinging."

"Yeah," he acknowledges, setting the canteen between his legs to rub his wrist.

She steps back to give him space but remains standing, hooking her prosthetic into the bars above and lightly testing her weight against it.

He takes another drink before sealing the canteen and trying to get to his feet. He doesn't make it two inches off the ground. "Easy," she says, "You're weak from dehydration. The doctor is on his way."

"Planning on keeping me in here?" He raps his knuckles on the bars over his head.

"Of course not," she replies, slipping down under his arm and pulling him to his feet. She supports him with his arm across her shoulders, hanging on with her good hand. Her prosthetic is on his back. "Tread," she calls out as they step out the door, "I need you to bring the things he had when he arrived."

"He had weapons on him. They were confiscated."

"I want all of his things brought to the infirmary, including the weapons."

He looks as though he wants to argue, but stops when he looks in her eyes. The look there reminds him precisely who and what she is, and he darts off to follow her order. She _made_ that rule. She can break it if she wants.

Max leans on her, letting her hold him up. His legs are shaky and his eyes are heavy. If Furiosa was to let him back down, he could quite happily sleep wherever she dropped him. He focuses on staying upright until they reach their destination.

A rumble sounds beyond the gates, and the War Boys on wall duty call out. Max's head is pounding and he can't make out the words. The tall metal gates creak open and a tanker pulls through slowly. Fury turns them to watch it pass, and a head pops out the window.

Shaggy hair. Dark skin. Giant, shit-eating grin. Chewing on a toothpick. The truck shudders to a stop. "Good run?" Fury calls out over the sound of the engine.

Toast nods. "We put the fear into them last time. Fair trade. No issues. When did Max get back?"

"No idea. Just found him myself. Need to get him to the infirmary," she calls back.

Toast eyes them up. "Need a lift?"

Furiosa shakes her head emphatically. "Too hard to drag him up there. I'll get one of your escort to do it."

Toast puts the truck back in gear and it starts rolling. "Catch you later!" she promises. The crowd parts as the truck and its company of armoured cars make their way across the settlement.

"How long has Toast been driving the War Rig?" he asks. He is leaning heavier on her now. His strength is waning and she needs to get him help.

They don't call this one the War Rig, but she doesn't bother telling him that. "From the very beginning. She needs to be moving. It's a good fit. She has steady hands and a good head on her shoulders. Good shot, too."

He grunts, and she almost smiles at that.

She flags down a passing truck and the War Boys in the raiding party help lift Max up to the tailgate, and hold him steady there. It is all he can do to stay upright and not vomit again from the motion. Furiosa jogs to the front of the truck, clearing a path to the infirmary. She is recognised easily, and the crowd simply flows out of her way.

Addams meets her in the doorway to the infirmary, and they help Max to one of the pallets on the floor. He is barely conscious as Addams hooks up a bag of salt water and drives the needle into his arm.

The doctor checks him over, but there is nothing left for him to do, so he leaves.

The bag hangs on a hook on the wall, and Max is lying on his back on the mat, fast asleep.

She sits on the floor next to him, leaning her back on the wall, and watches him.

His face is dirty, and covered with a few days' worth of beard.

He looks… calm. Peaceful. Like he's getting the first good rest he's seen in months. She knows it may very well be true.

The last time he left, he went on foot. As far as she knows, he returned the same way. She wonders how he's survived all this time.

And why he's returned.

Though regardless of his reason, he is welcome.

Most welcome.

She's tried to tell herself she doesn't miss him.

She was never quite convinced.

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He wakes to a sea of faces. All female. Their expressions range from welcoming to irritated.

"Welcome back, Max," says a voice from beside him.

He likes the way his name sounds from her lips, remembering a time when he didn't think she'd live to do that.

He smiles faintly to his audience, feeling out of his element.

"Why'd you leave?" asks the Dag, and her belly is visibly showing off her growing baby. She sounds particularly put-out.

"Dag," Furiosa admonishes, and earns herself a glare from the petite blonde.

"Well, you left! Went through all that trouble to get the Citadel back, saved _her_ life, whispered your name like it damn well _meant something_ , and _left_! Who _does_ that?"

Max looks ready to pull the needle out of his arm and bolt.

"Dag," Furiosa says again, gentler this time. "Let it go. Please."

Dag huffs out a breath. "Fine. I'm still angry though," she adds, meeting Max's gaze with a glare.

"It's good to see you," says Capable with a warm smile, like her two companions weren't just squabbling like children.

"Thanks. Uh… you too," he replies, and Furiosa could swear under all that dirt that his cheeks just turned pink.

"In one piece, too," adds Toast. "You must be one lucky sonofabitch."

He doesn't know what to say about that. He's alive, yeah, but the things he's lived through… he wouldn't exactly call that 'lucky'.

"You must be hungry," says Cheedo.

He is, and his stomach betrays him at that moment.

The women around him all laugh, and Cheedo produces a plate of food and a bottle of water from somewhere beyond the circle the women have formed around him. He sets the bottle on the floor and the plate on his lap, and unabashedly starts eating.

The Sisters exchange glances, and rise as one to give him some privacy. Furiosa follows, and they form a circle just outside where the infirmary exits out of the rock that is the base of the Citadel's rock wall.

"Damn," says Toast. "Forgot what a looker he was. If you don't want him, can I have him?" she asks Furiosa with an impish tilt to her lips.

The sisters eye up their leader, interested in her reaction. None of them missed the way their leader and the man acted as halves of a whole those months ago.

"Max doesn't belong to me. He is his own person. And if he shows an interest in you, in that way, go ahead. He's a good man." She seems honestly confused by the question.

But none of the Sisters ever ask again, and for some reason none of them ever approaches Max, either.

It's almost as though they know something she doesn't.

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Max wakes in a strange place.

It's dark. He is on a _mattress_. He is in a building of some sort.

Voices murmur from across the room, and he sees others on similar mats. _Hospital._ The needle is no longer in his arm, and there is a green duffle bag next to his mat. He drags it over, unzipping it and shuffling through its contents. As Fury ordered, his weapons are back. All of them.

He grunts, and looks up to find eyes watching him.

Apparently all it takes to summon the woman, is to think of her.

Or maybe she was sleeping on the next mat over.

 _Shouldn't she have a bed somewhere?_

"Hey," she says, stretching her neck.

"Hey."

"Feeling better?"

He nods. "Headache's gone."

"Good. We can get you moved out of here." He's been here for over a day. It's past time.

"Do me a favour first?"

Her eyebrow quirks.

"Read it to me." He stands, and finding his legs steady, peels off his jacket and dumps it on top of his bag, then pulls his shirt over his head, turning his back to her.

Her joints pop as she slowly raises to her feet. She traces the bold, raised black marks on his back, and he barely stifles a shiver at the touch. "It's upside-down," she says, "So they could read it while you're hanging."

He grinds his teeth, snarling.

"If you stand still, I can read it." She tilts her head to see better, and reads aloud,

"Day 12 045, height 10 hands, 180 pounds, no name…"

He grunts, and she smiles, whispering the word 'fool' to herself. Something else sounds in his throat, and he may be laughing. She continues:

"No lumps, no bumps, Full Life clear, Two good eyes, No busted limbs," she grunts at that, surprised. She's seen him fight.

"Piss ok, genitals intact." She snorts laughter out her nose, whispering, "Good to know," to herself. She's pretty sure his ears turn pink, but it's too dark to tell.

He takes a longsuffering breath. "Continue. Please?"

"Multiple scars," she says with a hint of sadness in her voice. Her fingers are tracing the words now, and he does shiver. She is fascinated by the texture of the raised letters, and doesn't notice his reaction. "Heals fast." The next part is in capital letters, she informs him. "O-PLUS, HIGH OCTANE. UNIVERSAL DONOR." She pauses. "That's how you knew it was safe to give me your blood."

"Mmm," he agrees.

"Back to small letters." She is still tracing her fingertips across his skin. It is the most anyone has touched him in years, but he doesn't ask her to stop. "Lone Road Warrior, run down in the powder lakes. V8. No guzzoline. No supplies. Back to capital letters." He can feel how high the letters are, across the top of his shoulder blades, and he realises that this is why she is tracing them. She is telling him where each word is. "ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC." She doesn't tease him, instead placing a hand on top of his bare shoulder and squeezing, a small gesture of comfort, both for the pain he endured having the words etched into his skin, and for the kind of struggle that leads to having such words describe you. "Back to small letters, and this is the last of it: keep muzzled." She traces the words once more with her fingers, then drops her hand to her side.

He feels the absence of her touch keenly.

Grunting a series of expletives under his breath, he bends down and retrieves his shirt. He is still swearing as he jerks his way back into his shirt and jacket. "I have to live with those goddamn words as a part of me for the rest of my fucking life? The sonofabitch died too quickly." He is shaking, he's so angry.

"He did," she agrees.

She waits for him to face her, and gently grasps the back of his neck. Leaning in, she lets her forehead bump his gently. He recognises the gesture as the one she used when she rejoined the Vuvalini, and reciprocates. "Welcome back, Max," she repeats her earlier words. What she would really like to say is, 'Welcome _home_ , Max,' but she doubts he would appreciate such a sentiment. However true it may be.

His anger seeps away like mist. She toys with the hair at the nape of his neck and something occurs to her. She steps back, playing her fingers over her own neck, feeling the raised skull there.

"Why don't you have his brand?" she asks.

He grins, a proud, terrifyingly feral expression. "I escaped before they could do it. They had to run me down and drag me back. That's probably the reason for the 'muzzle the psychotic' thing. Guess they forgot to finish the job when they had to add to the ink."

She grins back. "Good," she says with a note of finality.

He picks up his bag and the fingers of his other hand stray down the neck of his shirt, just brushing the edge of the words at the top. "Keep muzzled," he mutters darkly.

"Come on," she says. "Let me show you what we've done with the place."

She gives him the tour. He didn't see much of the Citadel during his stint as a blood bag, and wasn't in a position to really notice it anyways.

She shows him the smaller lifts they've built to ferry the workers to the Green, and the old rusted out cars they've repurposed as living space at sand level. She tells him of the infirmary they've carved out of the Citadel rock, and how construction on the wall is going. She gives him a tour of the Green, and they ride a cage very much like the one she'd found him in that morning, to the upper level.

Many of the workers now live and sleep in the tunnels he vaguely remembers running down. The Sisters, as they call themselves now, share one room to themselves, in a more private area, but their quarters are empty when she brings Max through. They all keep very busy with helping run the Citadel.

They pass the two remaining Vuvalini, Defiance and Tessa, who greet Max's unexpected return with wide smiles and knowing looks. She explains that they spend their days tending the seeds they brought. Most of them have taken, and are growing well.

He sees all they've done here, all the hard work Fury and the other women have put in, but mostly he notices the way the people look at her.

She has become to all of those who live here, what she became to him all those months ago.

Hope.

The place is practically reeking with it, and it terrifies him.

In this world, a place with so much goodness is begging to be torn to pieces.

He can't stay. He doesn't belong in a place like this and he can't bear to watch it fall.

She notices the difference: the way he stiffens and his eyes stray far away across the plain. The way his hand squeezes the handle of his bag reflexively.

"Max?" she says.

"Yeah?"

"At least have one last meal, and let me give you an equipped bike before you go."

She knows. Somehow she knows. There is no accusation. No recrimination. Something that was tightening around his chest releases.

"C'mon. I'll show you the bike."

It is strange. He needs to get out so badly his palms itch, and she is helping him leave.

She sits him down with a plate of food beside the garage while she makes arrangements and gets the bike loaded down.

He hears the rumble before he sees her pull it around. He sets his half-eaten plate of food on a barrel and stands. She drops the kickstand and turns off the bike, handing him the key. "All yours."

"Look, you didn't have to do this. I can…"

"I know," she replies, setting a hand on his arm. "Take it anyway."

He nods.

"And Max?"

"Mmm?"

"Try not to stay away so long this time." She squeezes his bicep before walking out of the garage without a backwards look.

He smiles faintly.


	2. The Second Return (Part 1)

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews, favourites, and follows! I personally like this chapter much better than the first. Let me know if you agree! Sorry it's on the short side. I'm going to try and update every few days, but I haven't finished it yet, so we'll see._

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Max stays away longer, though not by much. And not by design. But once more he gets drawn into other people's problems, and it nearly gets him killed.

He comes to in the middle of surgery.

Face down on a broad table, arms and legs wrapped around the edge and tied beneath to keep him still. Gagged, to keep him from biting his tongue.

The bullet is lodged in the meat of his lower back, a couple inches to the right of his spine.

Might have been a ricochet, or gone through something before it hit him, to lodge there without penetrating further.

Lucky. Any deeper and it would have gone into his bowels. A painful way to die.

The bullet is deep, and swelling is making it difficult to extract. It is fortunate he is unconscious for the procedure.

Until he isn't.

There is no warning. One second he is still as death, blood flowing sluggishly over his sides to pool on the table beneath him as the doctor looms over his back, digging forceps around in hard dense muscle, trying to find purchase among the blood.

The next, the doctor is thrown to the side as Max makes full use of the couple inches of play his bonds allow, bucking and writhing with an inhuman roar that echoes off the walls.

Furiosa knows the sound instantly, flashing back to the memory of a man, or something shaped like one, with an iron muzzle strapped around his face, and a chain snaking off the back of his head.

She doesn't bother apologising to the man she'd been speaking to outside the operating room, racing back to the doorway.

A solitary lantern hangs over the table, casting illumination on its occupant and shadows everywhere beyond. The doctor has his back pressed to the wall, wide-eyed in horror, and the two women acting as attendants cower in the corner. "Everyone out!" Furiosa says over the sound of Max's feral growling. Her voice is calm and even, but there is a lethal edge to it that brooks no argument.

The women scurry past her out the door, staying as far from the table as possible. The doctor stands to his full height, eyeing his leader. "Furiosa," he says, "I do not think you should…"

"I am aware of the danger. I did not ask for your opinion. Keep close," she orders. "We'll need you back here when I get him calmed."

One of the doctor's greying eyebrows raises in disbelief, and she repeats, "Get. Out." Her prosthetic arm points out the door behind her. The man leaves, muttering to himself as he goes.

Finally alone, Furiosa approaches the table.

"Max," she calls out. Then once more, "Max!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He comes to in a haze of pain, his entire body reflexively jerking as it always does when he wakes.

Something is wrong.

 _Legs: tied._

 _Hands: tied._

 _Mouth: gagged._

He jerks again, testing his bonds, and pain sears through his back.

Despair washes over him as he remembers the last time he was in this position.

 _Never left. Never left. Never left._

Rage joins in, and boils out of his chest in an inhuman cry.

Blood rushes through his head like howling wind, drowning out all but his own insanity.

The voices. The voices are back.

 _Max? Where are you, Max? Why didn't you save us?_

The endless scrolling of faces. The ones he failed. A new one added to the list. _Hers._

Something inside him whispers _that's not right_. If he never left, he hasn't failed her. They've never even met.

The others drown it out before he can fully grasp the thought. They join with the sound of rending flesh to a screaming crescendo that reverberates in his head.

He jerks against his bonds again, his entire body bucking ineffectually in a desperate attempt to escape.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There is nothing before her of the man she knew. The man who spoke of hope and redemption and insanity.

The last of which she clearly sees now.

The words "ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC" taunt her from where they are etched across his shoulders.

She calls his name again, taking slow steps to his side, and resting her hand on his arm.

He only thrashes harder.

She tries another tack, stroking her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. He tries to bite her hand.

She says his name over and over, but the calm that permeated her voice is ebbing away, and it cracks around his name.

Her chest is heavy and her throat aches. _What have I done?_ she accuses herself. The recriminations don't last long. He needed to be tied down, for the safety of the others. Whatever darkness his current situation has uncovered, there is nothing else she could have done. Without the surgery, he would have died.

Will die.

She grasps the back of his gag. He is making it difficult to grant him this one comfort, twisting his head around. The knot is tight, but she has just enough slack to slide it up and off his head, despite his struggles. He spits it out and tries to bite her arm again.

She stops saying his name, sliding to the floor in a heap. She closes her eyes, willing the tears gathered there not to fall.

If they fall, it means he's really gone. She opens them again, and sees his hand where it is tied beneath the table. She reaches up, clasping it as they did before, when he asked her to find redemption.

Together.

She leans her forehead against his elbow, allowing herself this last bit of contact before she has to walk away. They could leave him until he passes out from blood loss, but that may be too late. She doesn't know if he'd come back from the madness when he wakes anyways.

She wonders if a bullet to the head would be kinder.

If necessary, she'd do it herself. It's only right. If their roles were reversed, she would want it to be him.

He would understand.

She laughs, a choked and bitter sound in the silence.

When did the room go silent?

He is still on the table, and she distantly wonders if his wound has done the job for her.

She feels his fingers close around her wrist. Gently.

A voice sounds from above her. "Fury?" It is hoarse and hesitant. She awkwardly maneuvers to her knees, not daring to let go of his hand, and raises her head above the edge of the table.

Blinking blue eyes meet hers from the brink of the abyss, and she feels his body go slack.

"Why am I tied to a table?" he asks calmly, as though he wasn't a bloody feral _five seconds ago._

She lets go of his hand and grabs the edge of the table, pulling herself to her feet. "Dammit, Max," she sighs, and her voice catches, "You scared the shit out of me." She strokes her hand across his hair, and brings her forehead to rest on his temple, closing her eyes and taking a long, deep breath. Underneath the metallic blood smell that permeates the room, he smells of gunpowder, and grease, and sweat.

Her breath tickles his ear as she answers his question. "A family brought you in. You were shot defending them, and they managed to slow the bleeding long enough to get you here. You have a bullet in your back. We're trying to dig it out."

Doctor Addams has moved to the doorway, drawn by the sudden absence of growling. He sees his fearless leader with her forehead pressed to that of a madman, speaking in low tones. She sees him and beckons him back in.

She straightens up, leaving her hand resting on the back of Max's head. "As I've said before, you tend to come up swinging. I had you tied to the table to protect my people."

She says it so calmly, and it is the truth. In the six or seven months since they reclaimed the Citadel, its residents have become her people. Her responsibility, and her pride.

Max nods, understanding.

"I'm sorry," she says.

Not for having him tied to the table, but for putting him in a position where his demons got a free shot. She doesn't have to explain. He knows.

"We need to get this bullet out before he loses any more blood," the doctor reminds her.

Furiosa nods and moves to the open door. She points to the first two people she sees, and orders them to help with the surgery. They follow her in with looks of trepidation. "You two help Doctor Addams here. I will keep the patient calm." Their uneasiness turns to abject disbelief. If being tied to a table can't keep the patient calm, how can she expect to?

"Alright," Addams announces, "I'm going to get started." As he picks his tools back up, Furiosa grabs a stool from the corner and drags it next to the side of the table by Max's head. "Max, is it?" Both Max and Furiosa nod. "I need you to keep as still as possible. Feel free to scream if you need to."

Furiosa lays her head on the table, face to face with Max. She reaches her hand underneath to clasp his, and lays her prosthetic on his shoulder.

The doctor starts, and Max does, in fact, scream. His hand clenches around hers, and his eyes slam shut.

"Come on, Max," she chides. "Open your eyes. Look at me. Remember where you are." Remember _who_ you are, she adds silently.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

His back is on fire. He screams and closes his eyes against the pain.

Above it all, there is a voice. It tells him to open his eyes. It's her. The one who has pulled him back from the brink. Again. Her eyes are calm and her voice is smooth and her hand is rock steady in his. He feels her other hand stroking his shoulder, no less welcome for being metal instead of flesh.

And still, the pain. It washes over him and threatens to swamp him under. He doesn't want to go under. He doesn't want to wake to the nightmare again. So he holds on. With his hand, and his mind, and his will.

An eternity later, the faintest clink of metal against metal sounds in the room. "It's out," Addams declares.

It still hurts. The blood loss is getting to Max, Furiosa can tell from the haze that clouds his eyes. The stitching makes it hurt more, but Max no longer has the energy to fight, lying still. The only signs of his discomfort are the way his eyes crinkle at the edges, and the way his breath hisses through his clenched teeth. Furiosa takes an offered rag from the nurse and wipes the beaded sweat from his brow with her prosthetic hand, ever so gently.

And then it's over. The doctor places a clean pad of cloth over the wound, and one of the nurses holds it there. "If you think it's safe," Addams gives her a dubious look, "We can untie him now."

"I'll do it," Furiosa declares. She releases Max's hand once more and lies on her back under the table. His feet are unbound first, and he pulls them up on top of the table. Then she releases his hands, and before Furiosa is even able to stand, he clasps the edge of the table and tries to lever himself up. He barely manages to lift his chest before collapsing back down with a cry of pain.

"Lie still!" the doctor commands.

Max hasn't the energy to argue.

In the end Furiosa and the nurse have to hold him in a sitting position as the doctor cleans the blood from his torso and wraps the wound. He is barely conscious when they raise him to his feet, Furiosa and the doctor holding his arms across their shoulders as he half-walks and is half-dragged back to a pallet in the back corner, far away from the other patients.

The doctor suggests that Max be restrained. Furiosa is adamant that he _not_ be. The argument gets so heated that they are standing nose-to-nose yelling before Capable steps in and with a gentle hand on the arm of each, almost casually diffuses the situation.

Furiosa still doesn't know how the red-haired woman does that.

Furiosa knows that restraining Max is what caused his relapse in the first place. She offers to stay with him, thereby ensuring he stays calm. Addams doesn't believe that will be enough, and his first priority is his patients. Max will be restrained, or he will have to stay elsewhere. Finally she asks if his wounds are dire, and if they will be difficult to care for.

His dressing needs to be changed twice a day, but other than that he needs rest and time.

She has a stretcher brought, and two former war boys help roll Max onto it. He grunts in pain, but remains dead weight, out cold. She whispers an apology before the war boys lift him and carry him out of the infirmary.

Addams has given her a concoction for him to drink. It will help with the pain and sedate him. He recites a list of things she's going to need to do or know, and makes her repeat them back to him twice.

"Furiosa?" he asks as she turns to leave.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure it's safe to be alone with him?" The doctor is deeply concerned.

"I trust him with my life," she replies simply. "He's saved it more than once."

The man's eyes widen. If this man is so important, why has he never even heard his name?

"And he helped us reclaim the Citadel. If it wasn't for him, none of us would be here," she adds.

He wonders what the story is, but finally understands her loyalty to this volatile man. He just hopes she knows him as well as she thinks she does.

If not, they could all be doomed.


	3. The Second Return (Part 2)

Max has no idea where the _fuck_ he is.

He is on a bed, surrounded by walls, with an arched open doorway across from him. Indirect light filters in through it, down a long hall.

His back is throbbing, and his mouth feels like he's been eating sand.

It smells strange here.

Not bad. Not _wrong_ , but strange. Distantly familiar. He turns his head, scanning the room. There are words written on the wall, large and white, but his vision is hazy and he can't read them. Footsteps sound from out of sight, and a silhouette darkens the door.

"Hey, you're awake," a deep, but feminine voice greets him.

He relaxes immediately. "Fury."

"Why do you call me that?" she asks.

He blinks a couple of times, thinking. "Furiosa sounds like a title."

It is the name her mother gave her. It is the only name she's ever had. And yet, here in the Citadel, it _has_ become a title. The reverence with which most of her people use it has turned it into something else.

From his lips, 'Fury' suits her just fine.

She moves to perch on the edge of the bed, and he cranes his neck to look at her, unwilling to test his injury. It hurts enough as-is.

"The doctor gave me this to give you for the pain," she hands him a glass bottle with fluid in it. "Go ahead and drink it all. It's diluted, and there is more where it came from."

He takes it with a shaking hand and tips it sideways just far enough to drink without raising his head. He makes a face, but dutifully drinks it all, throat bobbing as he swallows. She takes the empty bottle from his hand when he is done.

"Where am I?" he asks. His voice sounds like tires over gravel.

She slides off the edge of the bed to sit on the floor, leaning to rest her mechanical arm on the bed, with her chin on her forearm. Their eyes are on the same level now, and he doesn't have to crane his neck.

"The doctor didn't trust you around the patients at the infirmary. Wanted to restrain you. Again." Max stiffens and she reaches her good hand across to squeeze his forearm. "I wouldn't let him, so we moved you here. It's quiet. The only people who come here are the Vuvalini, and they won't bother you."

 _There are so few left anyway,_ she thinks sadly.

"What is this place?"

Furiosa raises her head, turning to lean it back against the wall as she looks around the sparse accommodations. There is a single bed; a luxury in and of itself; which is currently occupied by Max, a wide, low dresser against the side wall, and a chair by the door. A heavy-duty hook hangs on the wall over her head, and there are words painted on the wall above the bed.

 _We are not things._

She left them there as a reminder of what they fought for, of what they wish to become, and not return to.

"This was the vault. This is where Joe kept his wives," she replies, and a myriad of emotions colour her words. Anger. Sadness. Regret.

Guilt.

She lets herself feel all these things for but a moment, then gently closes them out. They have no place in the future she is building.

"And now?" Max asks, and this is the important question, and he knows it. Otherwise he wouldn't have had to ask three questions in order to get the answer.

"This?" She makes a sweeping gesture with her good hand that encompasses the entire room. "This is my room."

This place wasn't a part of the tour.

He closes his eyes, and she can tell that sleep is dragging at him once more. He looks so pale. A smile teases at the corner of his mouth. "People will talk," he jokes.

She doesn't rise to the bait. "Let them," she replies. His tiny half-smile grows just a little wider.

She raises to her feet. "Rest, Max. You're safe here."

"You'll be nearby?" He almost hates himself for having to ask, but she seems to be able to calm him in a way nothing and no one else does. For some reason, she draws out the part of him that is still Max.

He is not afraid of the dark, or of enemies, or of the ghosts of the dead that haunt him.

He is afraid of himself.

He trusts her to be strong enough to take him on if the darker part of him surfaces, and he trusts her to be able to call him back from the abyss.

Like today.

So he asks if she will stay so that if he wakes as someone else, she can call him back to himself.

She is tired. It has been a long day. It is always a long day here at the Citadel, where so many rely on her. She is pulled in so many directions.

So she unbuckles the belts around her waist and slips out of her mechanical arm, hanging it on the hook next to the bed. She takes out the two guns and three knives she keeps hidden on her person at all times, and stashes them in their places in her room. A knife and a gun go under the mattress. The other gun goes in the holster nailed to the back of the dresser. Another knife gets stabbed into a slot on the wall, its hilt protruding behind her prosthetic. The last knife goes in the bottom drawer.

She lays down on the bed next to him. His face is turned towards her as he lays on his stomach, bare back showing black words and a white bandage. This position is painful enough. Any other would be unbearable. She is on her side facing him, her half-arm beneath her. She reaches across and takes his hand. "I'll be right here."

His eyes drift closed, and his face goes slack. It is the most peaceful she has ever seen him.

That night, she sleeps with her back to the open doorway for the first time, because he will need to see her face when he wakes.

xxxxxxxxxxx

For some reason he can place the elusive smell before he even opens his eyes.

It is green.

It is the smell of growing things, and humidity and photosynthesis.

And hope.

His back is screaming at him again. Why do gunshot wounds _hurt_ so _fucking much_?

But he wakes with the smell of hope filling his lungs, and for the first time in forever, he feels _peace._ This space was used for awful things, but she has taken it back and infused it with life and purpose.

He wonders if that's something she does just by _being_. He almost chuckles at himself for having such deep thoughts before so much as opening his eyes.

She is there, beside him. She's long since discarded her grasp on his hand, but he can feel the mattress move with her breathing, and even without that he just _knows_.

It was like that from almost the beginning. Even when they were trying to kill each other, they seemed to know where the other was, and what their next move was. The uncanny skill came in handy when they moved on to killing other people.

He finally breaks the moment, opening his eyes.

Morning light filters in past her sleeping form. Her shoulder rises and falls as she breathes, and he remembers a time when she gasped painfully for every breath. Not so now. Her face is peaceful in repose, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. Her mouth is slack, and she is drooling, ever so slightly. He smiles.

And once more the moment is broken, as her eyes snap open.

She makes a liar out of his earlier thoughts as she is holding a knife against his neck before he knows what is happening. If pressed, he would claim the sedatives have slowed his brain.

He blinks at her, unable to move, and sees the precise moment when her conscious self overrides her reflexes. The knife is withdrawn, and stabbed back into the wall almost viciously.

She takes a long breath through her nose as her eyes close. "Sorry for that," she says, feeling that the words are inadequate. She invited him to stay here so he could feel safe, not so she could threaten him herself.

"No," he replies, "It's alright. I get it." And he does. There is no blame in his eyes. A hint of admiration, perhaps, but no blame. "I…um…ah…"

She has to bite her lip to keep from smirking. Max does have this habit of forgetting how to talk. The man can convey more meaning through a grunt than most could in a conversation.

"Can you tell me where the… And help me get up?"

 _Ah. Bathroom._ She helps get him sitting up, and by the time he is standing, he is covered in sweat and breathing like he just finished a knock-down, drag-out fight. He leans his weight heavily on her, taking stuttering steps and breathing through gritted teeth.

The terrifying thing is that this place actually has a proper bathroom. With a toilet and a sink and a shower, and running water. She leaves him to manage on his own, regretting the decision when he hasn't come back out or made a sound in five minutes. Finally she goes to test the door, and it opens before she reaches the knob. He is leaning on the wall just inside, and she carries even more of his weight as his support on the way back. She wishes she thought to put on her prosthesis for this. An extra hand would help.

They finally get him back to the room and he all but falls onto the bed, face first. She lifts his feet, one by one, moving him a little farther into the middle of the bed.

He knows where the smell of green comes from.

Outside her bedroom doorway, beneath a curved glass dome, is an indoor jungle of green. The space is filled with plants: tomatoes and cucumbers and raised beds overflowing with vegetables and hanging troughs that spill their bounty over the side to hang like curtains towards the ground.

But now he is back to lying face down in Fury's bed. He is so exhausted from the short trip that he can't bring himself to move, even though his stomach feels like it's gnawing on his backbone.

He ignores the feeling, long since accustomed to it.

"I'll be back in a minute," she says, patting his shoulder before shrugging into her prosthetic as she leaves the room.

He drifts in a pain-filled haze of half-dream, and low murmuring voices hover in his subconscious. She returns. "If you're up for it, I'm having food brought up. And more painkiller."

He nods without opening his eyes.

"I need to check your wound. Clean it and change the bandage."

He winces. That part always hurts.

Her retreating footfalls tell him she has left the room. She returns again, and he pries one eye open to see that she carries a basin and has a small satchel strung across her shoulder. She sets the basin on her dresser and drags the chair next to the bed. She moves the basin to the chair, and sits on the bed next to him.

He lays still as she unwinds the bandage from his midsection, sliding her hands beneath his abdomen rather than asking him to sit up. Despite her gentleness, even the slight jarring is enough to send pain screaming up and down his back.

He cries out softly through clenched teeth. "Sorry," she says as she pulls a cloth from the basin of water and cleans around the wound. It is red and puckered and angry, but the redness has not spread, and it is beginning to close already. She pulls out a small tin, lifting the lid and swiping a generous portion of ointment. She gently rubs it over and around the bullet hole.

He cries out and writhes and there are tears streaking down his cheeks. "Almost done," she whispers. She presses a new pad to the wound, wraps the bandage around his stomach once more, and ties it. The cloth and the soiled bandage go into the basin and the water turns rust-coloured.

His back is clean and she frowns at the blood that is caked into the waistband of his pants, finally shrugging to herself. There is nothing to be done for it now. She won't take from him the last line of defense that is his clothing.

Perhaps tomorrow she can talk him into changing them himself.

Someone clears their voice in the doorway, and one of the war pups, _Archer_ , she thinks, comes in, carrying a tray of food. "Thank you," she says with a smile, and the boy's eyes grow wide and his face tinges pink as his leader deigns to speak to such a lowly creature. She trades the basin for the tray, and the boy disappears.

Max watches the exchange, noting that the people seem to have shifted their worship to the former Imperator. She accepts the adulation with grace and gentleness, showing them a different way.

She's good at that.

Fury hands him the bottle of liquid painkiller first, and he gulps it down like he's dying of thirst. He rests for a few minutes as the pain lessens.

"Are you hungry?" she asks.

He nods.

"Well, this isn't going to be pleasant," she says, seeming to address the empty air in the room. "If we get you rolled to your side, can you eat like that?"

"Think so," he replies.

She rolls him, ever so gently to his side. It still hurts like a hot poker to his back, and he needs a couple of minutes to breathe through the pain before even _thinking_ about eating.

He is halfway through the meal when they appear.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The three huddle together just beyond the tunnel that is their former prison's door, the long hanging baskets of produce at their back. Capable has already gone ahead, carrying a green duffle bag and a dirty black leather jacket. She faced this fear long ago, on her own, and the place no longer holds her mind prisoner.

The others have not set foot inside since their return.

The heavy vault door is gone, taken down and cut into pieces that now make up part of the wall that defends them.

Still, the tunnel is dark and crowded with memories.

They do not want to come here. Ever.

But Max is here. The man who showed them that men need not be vicious brutes. All the more potent after seeing how truly violent he is capable of being. The man who helped them reclaim their home, then faded away like the memory of a dream.

The Dag takes the first step, her hand clinging to that of Cheedo. Toast stands behind them, arms crossed over her chest and face like a thundercloud. Finally she crosses the threshold, jaw set. Having made the decision, she marches past the other two with a determined stride.

She stops at the other end of the tunnel, dumbstruck.

It gives the other two a chance to catch up, taking hesitant steps like they expect Joe himself to jump out of the walls. The Dag strokes her protruding belly as the child leaps around, agitated by her nervousness.

The baby could come at any time. He will grow up free of the influence of his father and his brothers.

Or she. The thought gives her courage, and she steps out next to her sisters.

They are _all_ struck dumb.

The piano and chandelier are gone, moved somewhere down below. So are the books, now stacked neatly along the wall of the classroom, also down below.

The beds and the sheets are gone. Even the bath built into the floor with the clear running water is gone, now filled with fertile soil and overflowing with green.

The whole room is overflowing with green.

Dag's face lights up, and she spins around with her arms out, laughing.

The other two stare at her like she's lost her mind.

She takes their hands, one of each, and leads them further into the room. Her smile could light the entire Citadel.

"Don't you see? It's the green place. It's _here_! It's ours, and it's here, and _we made this_!" She lets go and spins around again. "He can't touch us here. He can never touch us again because this is ours and _we took it from him_!"

Toast's face slowly relaxes. Her sister is right. There is nothing of the pain and oppression they suffered here. Even the smell is different. Here there is life, and it has forced out the pain. She doesn't have to fear this anymore.

Cheedo can still see the place it was, in the walls and the glass. Sometimes she misses the luxury that she lived here. But she long ago came to the decision that it was not worth the sacrifice. This life is hard, but it is also good. It is hers, and she gets to choose.

It looks better in green. She breaks into a grin.

They turn as one to the little room off to the side.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Capable appears first, beautiful and serene and quiet. She sets the duffle on the floor where the chair had been, and gently drapes the jacket over it.

Max takes a bite and nods to her, silently thanking her for bringing his things. She sits down in the chair, next to the bed. "Welcome back," she says simply. "One of these days you're going to show up here without being injured first, and the world will implode in surprise," she adds.

He nearly spits out his food, wincing in pain as laughter jars his back.

"Please don't make him laugh," Furiosa chides her, but mirth dances in her eyes as she speaks. She secretly agrees with the Sister.

Laughter sounds from outside the room, a joyous, triumphant sound.

Capable sits up, and her face looks victorious. "Finally," she whispers.

She meets Furiosa's eyes, and they hold a silent conversation. "So they've come," she says.

"Finally," Capable repeats.

Max looks back and forth between the two women, clearly missing something. And then they appear.

Toast's hair is longer. Cheedo looks taller, braver somehow. Dag looks like a walking globe. They hover at the threshold for a moment, then trickle in.

"I like what you've done with the place," Toast says. She smiles at the white words above the bed. She painted those herself.

Capable raises from the chair and points imperiously at Dag. She nods acknowledgement to the red-haired woman and takes the seat. Her feet are throbbing anyways.

Capable sits down on the floor by the dresser. Toast remains standing, leaning her hip on the same dresser, and Cheedo stands next to her.

Max lays his fork on the plate and pushes it away, settling down into the mattress. Furiosa takes it, handing it to Capable before pulling her feet up on the bed and sliding backwards to rest her back against the wrought iron footboard.

"You look terrible," the Dag says, meeting Max's eyes.

Her belly is blocking half the room. "You look ready to pop," he replies.

She stares down at the fabric stretched taut over her stomach, somehow looking beyond its surface to the child beneath. "I was thinking of naming him Max, but I'd like him to learn to speak using _words_ someday instead of grunts, so I had to find an alternative."

Max smiles, and it is breathtaking.

But he is also pale and the wrinkles around his eyes betray the pain he's in.

Capable stands. "We'll come back when you're feeling a bit better."

His eyes have drifted shut, but he nods.

The women file out, and he feels the mattress shift as Furiosa follows them. He opens his eyes.

"I'll be right back," she promises.

His eyes close once more, and he is asleep before she reaches the doorway.

The sisters stare around the vault, still awed at the change. "How is he really?" asks Cheedo.

"Tired, and sore. He should be fine in a few days."

"Might be good for him," replies Toast. "Actually get him a few days' _rest_."

Furiosa secretly agrees with her.

Capable meets her eyes, gaze serious and piercing. "No sign of relapse?" she asks.

"Relapse?" Cheedo interrupts.

Furiosa draws them away from her room and towards the glass dome. "I thought we lost him yesterday."

"If his condition is that serious, why isn't he in the infirmary?" Toast asks angrily.

Furiosa sighs. "You remember when we met him, with a muzzle on and dragging Nux and a car door?"

"Yeah," replies Toast, impatient to find out what this has to do with her question.

"Yesterday, when they tried to dig the bullet out, he was like that."

"Oh."

The sisters' eyes grow wide as they realise the implication of what Furiosa has said. "I thought I might have to put him down right then and there."

Capable covers her mouth with her hand. She'd known about his reaction, but she didn't know it had gotten that bad. "Shit," she whispers, and it is jarring because she _never swears_.

"How has he been since?" asks Cheedo.

"Fine. One second he was a raving feral, the next he calmly asked me why he was tied to a table." She laughs, and tears leak from the corners of her eyes because this is the first time she's been able to speak of how close she came to losing him, to people who _understand._

Capable is the first to hug her, and soon she finds herself surrounded by women, their arms around her and their cheeks resting on her shoulders.

It is odd. The Sisters touch each other all the time. They are a unit, different yet one. Furiosa has always been separate from that. It is rare that _anyone_ touches her.

She lets them comfort her, needing the understanding and the touch. Needing to be allowed to be vulnerable, just for a moment.

The sisters understand. This does not mean she is weak. This means she is human. They love her all the more for it.

Capable speaks up, "We'll make sure everything keeps running in the Citadel. Stay with him."

They all nod and slowly release her. None of them wants to see Max return to what he was before Furiosa anchored him to this world. And she doesn't get enough sleep. Ever. A couple of days rest would do her good.

And show her that the life they've built here will not collapse if she takes a day or two for herself.

Furiosa laughs again, but this time it is a sound of joy. "This morning, I pulled a knife on him. Not used to waking up next to someone."

"How did he react?" asks Toast.

"Confused. No damage done, in any case. I didn't realise by bringing him up here, he'd be in more danger from _me_ than the other way around."

They understand what she is trying to say, that since yesterday, he had been _Max_. That they shouldn't worry for her safety.

So they don't.

They say their farewells with gentle touches to her arm and back, and tell her to have them summoned if she needs anything. And then they are gone.

She sits down at her workbench in the corner and eats everything on the plate the war pup left there for her before she uses the washroom, splashing water over her face.

She returns to her room, standing in the doorway and watching him sleep, and smiles as his snores echo off the walls.


	4. The Second Return (Part 3)

It is strange, having so much time and space to herself. She sleeps, and she doesn't pull a weapon on Max again. He sleeps, and heals.

He sleeps a lot.

So she spends time at her workbench, puttering away and tinkering with her prosthetic. She has two aside from the one she usually wears. One is a similar spare, and the other is an attempted improvement on the current design. With middling results. She hasn't had much time to work on it since becoming the Citadel's de facto leader.

So she tweaks, and tinkers, and when she hears him stir in the next room, she returns.

The third day, he starts getting up and taking short walks around the vault. Sometimes she joins him, others she stays at the bench, plotting out improvements for the Citadel's food production. It is always a concern.

He stops to speak to Defiance and Tessa when he passes them as they tend the plants here. They are the only ones permitted within the vault, the last private space left in the Citadel. They have earned the right to their own company.

Furiosa had tried to give them the room, but they wanted her to have that bit of space for herself. They prefer to sleep beneath the stars anyways.

The older women are friendly, wise, and downright impish when they speak to him. For all of their distrust of men, they accept him, and he seems to enjoy their company.

It is strange to see him seeking conversation.

That day she finally talks him into relinquishing his pants to be cleaned. The clean ones she gives him fit, but he pulls at them like they don't feel right.

She wonders if he's been wearing the same clothes for so long that he's forgotten how to wear anything else. It would explain his attachment to that jacket.

A shirt would get in the way of her changing his dressings, so he's still going without one. The Vuvalini eye him up teasingly. He is adorably awkward in the face of their regard.

He is the antithesis if every man she has ever met.

He is nice to look at, Furiosa admits somewhere deep inside where she doesn't have to think about the implications of such thoughts.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She wakes gasping for air, the fingers of a barely-remembered dream clawing at her.

The sound wakes him. The pain has receded to a dull throb, so he sits up.

He does not try to touch her.

She sits up, leaning on her good hand, eyes flitting unseeingly around the dark room.

"Fury," he says. "It's alright. You're safe. I'm here."

The voice penetrates her panicked haze, and she is confused.

Waking alone and afraid is familiar to her, almost like an old friend.

Waking with someone next to her offering words of comfort is such an alien experience that she wonders if she is still dreaming.

Her eyes close, and she draws a long breath. "Max."

"Yes," he replies. "Are you alright?"

She nods. "Just need a minute."

"Want to talk about it?"

Her head shakes negative. "I don't remember it anyway."

He lays back down on his side, propping himself up on his elbow with his chin on his hand.

She stands and leaves the room without another word.

He waits, facing the door.

A couple of minutes pass and she returns, with droplets of water shining on her face and in her hair. She lies down facing him.

He lays a hand open on the bed between them, giving her the option to accept his comfort or not.

She takes it without hesitation, leaning in to press her forehead to his fingers. He waits for her to meet his eyes again before he places his hand on her shoulder, pulling gently towards him.

She provides no resistance, easily sliding across the space so that their clasped hands are pressed between their chests. His free hand wraps around her, resting gently between her shoulder blades.

She lets go of his hand to place hers hesitantly on his waist. She's never done this before.

He goes up on his elbow, raising her head to slip his arm under it, letting her head rest on his bicep. He's done this plenty.

A long, long time ago.

Despite the fact that their bodies are pressed together from knee to chest, he is holding her loosely. She could easily roll away, and she knows it.

"Sleep," he says, and his breath feathers across her forehead. "I've got you."

She relaxes, knowing that he expects nothing of her but what she is giving him here, right now, in this moment.

It is a novel experience, to be this close to someone and not have them ask, or choose to take. Her fingers play with the edge of his bandage for a moment, finally to splay over his skin, gripping gently.

He still smells of grease and sweat. It is pleasant and familiar, but she will have to arrange a bath for him tomorrow.

It is such a mundane thought to have at this moment that she smiles to herself, closes her eyes, and sleeps.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Max wakes alone.

He wonders briefly if last night was a dream.

It wasn't, he finally decides, but he's not sure what exactly sways him to that conclusion.

He sits up. Her prosthetic is gone from its place next to the bed, and the knife she greeted him with that first morning is not in its slot on the wall. He doesn't hear her at the workbench outside.

He doesn't hear _anyone_ outside.

There is a plate of food and a folded pile of clothes on the dresser. He grabs the clothes on his way to the washroom, eager to be back in his own things.

One glance in the mirror convinces him he's too dirty to wear clean clothes. He fills the sink with cold water, even though he knows that there is hot available. He's not sure how the former ruler did it, but the man ensured his wives lived in the lap of luxury.

Too high a price to pay for being the bastard's breeding stock.

Max shakes off his thoughts, throwing a ratty old towel down on the floor and taking his clothes off. He tosses them into a pile by the door. They were clean two days ago when he got them. Now they are dirty from simple association with him.

He takes a cloth and washes himself as best he can using the water from the sink. He would use the shower, but he refuses to waste such a valuable resource. He's pretty sure it's a bad idea to get his wound wet, besides.

He has to drain and refill the sink three times before the water stops turning brown when he rinses the cloth.

He is as clean as he's going to get, and cleaner than he's been in years. Eying the scruff that's gathered on his face over the last few weeks, he grabs a pair of scissors from the counter behind him and trims it as short as he can get it.

Blue eyes greet him from a dark, tanned face. He looks like Max again.

He uses the smallest towel he can find to dry himself, and pulls his clean clothes on.

They feel different when they're not caked in sand and dust. It's unnerving. He collects all of the soiled clothes and towels and places them in the hamper outside on his way out.

His back has started to itch, and he knows that's a good thing. He's healing.

His boots and knee brace have joined his duffle and jacket in the corner. He pulls on the boots but leaves the brace on the floor. He doesn't need it for walking, and has no intention of getting in a fight or running for his life today.

There was a time he would have put it on anyways.

Maybe sleeping in a bed surrounded by four walls is making him soft. Or maybe it's sleeping next to a _woman_ that's doing it.

Or maybe he just feels safe here. He does retrieve a handgun and two knives from his bag. Safe or no, he's not going anywhere unarmed.

He carries the plate to Fury's workbench and wolfs down his food standing up, then sets off in search of the Citadel's leader.

It is a strange journey.

There is no one to direct him, so he finds himself wandering familiar halls, accompanied only by his memories.

A dark hallway, pipes and green above. A room, sadly devoid of his car.

He misses his car.

Shadows of the past linger at the edge of his vision. Bald spectres in white paint and running for his life. Jumping, then being clawed and dragged back to hell.

But it is empty now. He wonders where everyone is.

He finds the cage lift guarded by two bald men. War boys. Or former war boys.

They all look the same to him.

And yet, beneath the white paint, there is calm where madness once resided.

Fury's doing.

She's good at that.

One of the men looks him up and down. "Good tah see ya up 'n about," he says.

"Lookin' for Furiosa?" the other asks.

Max nods.

"She's down in the infirmary," the man informs him.

Max's heart beats faster. "Anything wrong?" he asks, too casually.

The war boy grins. "Naw. Go see for y'self!" He opens the door to the lift and Max has to take a deep breath before stepping inside. He doesn't like to be contained.

And it is literally a cage.

The door closes behind him with a ring of finality, and Max watches the ground far beneath him move as the war boys shift the lever and the lift shudders its way down.

His gaze shifts to the walkways, noting the volume of people scurrying back and forth. Many of the pitiful creatures that lived below, desperately scrabbling for the drops that Joe let forth at his whim, now live atop the plateaus. They tend the plants and crops, helping to provide for all who live within the walls.

At the bottom, a heavily-armed young woman he doesn't recognise opens the door for him, nodding towards the infirmary when he asks for directions.

He could find the place by himself, but it is quicker to ask. He is driven by an urgency, a need to know why she would abandon him so thoroughly after sharing the unexpected intimacy of the previous night.

He hopes he hasn't scared her off. He would trade every kind touch just for her friendship.

It took her all of two days to change his entire existence.

There is a crowd outside the infirmary, and he can hear screams from within. His heart drops to his stomach, and he pushes his way to the door.

The man there looks him up and down, squints for a second, then his eyes go wide. "Go on in," he says. "Furiosa is inside." Max doesn't recognise him as the doctor who took the bullet out.

Max offers a silent prayer to a God he doesn't believe in that it's not _her_ screaming. Guilt swamps him at the selfish thought, and he amends it to ask that the person be alright, regardless of who it is.

The screams are definitely female, and he has to fight off his memories.

The screams of a woman, in this wasteland, are always a herald of horror.

He's seen more than enough of that to clog his mind and drive out his sanity. He clings to it with tenuous grip as the screams drag out the part of him that forgets his name.

Then they stop, and he wishes they would start again. The lack of sound holds more finality than its precursor.

The cry of another sounds out in the silence, and a cheer goes up behind him.

No longer blinded by his demons, he looks around the room to see smiling faces. Hugging, embracing.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

Toast emerges from a room in the back. Her smile is both peaceful and triumphant, and her eyes meet Max's as she speaks. "It's a girl," she announces to the room, but her eyes remain locked with his.

A girl. He sits down in an empty space along the wall as Toast goes back in the room. Congratulations and happy noises reverberate through the room. He stretches his legs out in front of him, content to remain distant from the rejoicing.

And he waits.

Toast appears once more, making a beeline to him. She grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet. "She wants to see you," Toast informs him, dragging him through the crowd to the door. She gives him no chance to refuse, and he follows with a faint smile. The woman's determination has not been dulled by her change in situation.

The room is filled with women. Max realises that he is the sole man who has been allowed into the sanctuary, and is both humbled and terrified at this knowledge.

The Dag is sitting in a bed set against the middle of the far wall, right across from the door. She is pale and exhausted, and already she is defiantly protective and proud of the bundle snuggled into the crook of her arm.

The women move back, allowing him passage to her side. "Max," the Dag says reverently. "Look at her. Isn't she beautiful?"

She is red and wrinkly and her face is all scrunched up, but Max agrees. Wholeheartedly. That little bundle of hope is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

It breaks his heart.

He swallows hard, willing back tears of happiness for her, and sadness for a man who no longer exists.

"I'm calling her Verdant," the Dag announces. She meets his eyes and nods, acknowledging the pain and happiness she recognises there. "It means 'green'."

He knows that, but this moment is hers, and the name is perfect. He speaks the last out loud, and his voice comes out rough.

The women crowd around the bed again and he moves back until he can lean against the wall. Furiosa is across from him, and he is almost mirroring her posture exactly.

She is a part of this, and her eyes flash in triumph to say so, but she is also on the fringe.

The women coo at the writhing infant, and Tessa helps Dag to get the baby suckling. Dag looks past the Sisters and the Vuvalini to meet Furiosa's gaze. "This is what we fought for," she says, and her voice rings out with truth and determination. "Our children will not be warlords, and that is thanks to you."

Furiosa nods acknowledgement, and her eyes go shiny. "Our daughters will be free, and our sons will not throw away their lives for _nothing_ ," she continues. "Angharad would be proud of what we've built here."

Suddenly the emotion of the room, combined with the grief of long-ignored memories and the abrupt crush of guilt at his part in Angharad not being here today is too much for him. He levers off the wall and bolts out the door, not quite breaking into a run.

He wades blindly through the crowds and past people, searching desperately for someplace to be _alone_. He finds it in the shade between a boulder and the sheer rock wall, rests his hands on his thighs, and vomits.

He is trying desperately not to see the faces. A dark-haired woman. A blond boy. A willowy woman with long blonde hair and a round protruding belly.

His voice comes back to him, taunting. " _She went under the wheels."_

There is nothing left in his stomach, and still it heaves, lancing pain through his back.

Out of nowhere, a hand rests on his shoulder. A voice sounds, driving out the rushing in his ears and his own dispassionate recounting of Angharad's death.

"Max. I'm here."

Fury does nothing but stand next to him, stroking her thumb back and forth over the rough fabric of his shirt. She says nothing more, silently bearing witness to his grief.

His stomach slowly stops trying to expel nothing. His breathing slows in increments. A headache is beginning to blaze behind his eyeballs and his back throbs like it did two days ago. He stands, and the hand falls from his shoulder.

"I'm tired," is all he says, his eyes cast to the ground.

She leads him back to the cage and closes the door with herself on the outside. "I'll join you in a bit."

He understands that she has her responsibilities, but her absence hurts like a physical wound as he takes the lift to the top and staggers back to her quarters.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She left the room rather suddenly on the heels of the retreating Max, and expects to be chided for it when she re-enters the room. Instead she receives sympathetic looks.

"He okay?" asks Dag, gazing lovingly down at the infant suckling at her breast.

"It was all a bit much for him. He's headed back to the room." Somehow it's too intimate to call it _her_ room when he's sleeping in it.

To a woman, they all nod. Each of them has their own trauma, and each of them has fallen apart, in their time. They understand that it is not weakness.

"You look exhausted," says Capable, flashing Furiosa a knowing look. She and Max were twined like lovers when Capable came to fetch her for the birthing.

Furiosa just nods. "Bad dreams last night. Didn't sleep well."

Capable raises an eyebrow in response, and earns herself a warning glare.

"You should ask him to stay," she says.

Furiosa's eyes widen. "He knows he's welcome to," she replies.

Capable shakes her head as her eyes bore into Furiosa's. "It's not the same as hearing it. Maybe he needs to _hear_ it."

Furiosa shakes her head. Max is a man of few words. He doesn't need it said out loud.

"Or maybe you need to say it," Cheedo adds softly.

Furiosa's eyes drift closed. Ah. There it is. The truth of the matter. She needs to speak the words. Knowing that it won't make a difference. Max is going to leave. The only question is how much time they have before he does. And whether he ever comes back.

But now that it's been said, she knows it is true. She needs to say the words, simply because they need to be spoken.

Defiance shoos them all out of the room so that Dag and Verdant can sleep. Furiosa speaks with a few people on her way back to the lift, putting out minor fires that have arisen in the time she's been remote.

She finds Max fast asleep in her bed, and for the first time notices that he's once again fully clothed, and _clean_. He's even trimmed his beard, and he looks years younger. She crawls in next to him and he reaches for her without waking, his subconscious already accepting her presence. She presses her ear to his chest, letting the sound of his heartbeat through his shirt lull her to sleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She is still there when he wakes.

It is eminently preferable to the alternative.

Sometime in the night he turned onto his back. It's nice to be able to do that again, and that familiar twitch in the back of his brain tells him it's time to move on. He ignores it in favour of tightening his arm around the woman sleeping with her head on his shoulder.

Her hand rests over his heart, splayed out and relaxed. Her breath is warm against his neck.

This is nice.

Relaxed will get you killed in this world. If he stays, he'll go soft. He wonders distantly when he started to think of _staying_.

 _If you can't fix what's wrong… you'll go insane._

But here in the Citadel, she _has_ fixed what is wrong. She has built a home for thousands of people.

Himself included, if he'd ever allow it.

He knows that.

But he doesn't trust himself not to lose his mind and hurt people. Doesn't trust himself to be strong enough to save the ones he cares about.

A year ago the ones he cared about numbered one.

Now, he needs two hands to count them.

Hope is a mistake. They are too many to keep safe. One day he will fail them.

It is better to be on his own.

Tell that to the arm that's currently wrapped around the most important person on the planet. The heart that beats into her palm. The lips he presses gently to her forehead, too much of a coward to risk her reaction while she's awake.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

She wakes slowly, floating in a cocoon of warmth and safety. Her hand flexes, and her fingertips catch on the fabric of his shirt. She shifts as she feels the warm body next to hers. The arm that's wrapped around her tightens on her hip, and his other hand closes gently around hers. Finally her eyes drift open.

His blue ones are already looking into them. "Good evening," he says.

She looks around, judging by the quality of light seeping down the corridor to her room that it is, in fact, evening.

They must have slept the day away.

She notices that he is laying on his back. "You must be feeling better."

"Mmm," he replies, and it is as good as a yes.

His stomach growls, breaking the moment.

She sighs. "I should get up. See if my Citadel has crumbled in the last three days." He is past needing her with him, and they both know it. Time to go back to work.

She sits up and goes through the familiar motion of strapping on her arm. He leans on his elbow and watches, fascinated by the process that is second nature to her. She buckles the last belt and pulls on her boots. "I'll see if there's food around."

She leaves the room. He is sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on his own boots when she returns with a plate of food in each hand. He takes one from her, balancing it on his lap and digging into it like he hasn't eaten in days.

He doesn't know how long it will be until he'll get to eat like this again.

Max is surprised when she takes the chair by the door instead of perching on the bed next to him.

He is used to being the one to create distance.

"You could stay, you know." The statement drops like a stone in the room, depriving it of all sound.

He looks up from his plate, finding her already looking at him.

He wishes she hasn't said the words out loud. She doesn't need to. She _knows_ that.

A flash of anger tears through his chest, that she would shake the foundations of their relaxed camaraderie.

And yet, as her eyes calmly look into his, he realises that she has said them because she needs to.

Just like last time.

 _You're more than welcome to join us._

 _No. I'll make my own way._

The conversation hangs in the air between them like they're still standing next to the War Rig in the darkness.

She remembers being disappointed at his reply, but confused at her own feelings. Why should she even care _what_ some nameless drifter wants to do with his life? Then not blaming him for wanting to be away from her. All she'd accomplished so far by chasing this fantasy was to get one of her charges killed and lead them all from luxury to a desolate wasteland devoid of hope.

She shakes off the memory. This is not a desolate wasteland. This is a _home._ He deserves to rest. To stop punishing himself for his past sins.

She knows he's not ready for that.

Instead of reiterating his intention to go, he says simply, "I know."

She had been afraid to speak the words. Afraid they would drive him away, never to return. She realises now that no one can make Max do anything he doesn't want to. He will continue this pattern of ranging out on his own and returning to lick his wounds, until he either gets himself killed or decides to stay.

"I have work to catch up on," she announces before leaving the room.

When she returns, just after daybreak, he is gone.

As she expected.

The only sign he was ever there is the woven grey bracelet on the dresser, and the familiar comforting smell when she lays down alone in the bed hours later. She feels his absence like her missing hand, and yet there is something of him that yet lingers in the room. Some part of him remains.

She puts the bracelet on her wrist the next day. It becomes the one thing she never takes off.


	5. The Third Return (Part 1)

**_A/N: I hate writing action scenes. My forte is dialogue, so this was difficult for me. I hope this fit with the movie well enough to not be jarring. Once again, thanks for all the reviews, follows and favourites. I live for that stuff. I just finished the first draft of the last chapter, so I should be updating every other day until it's done. If you want them faster, leave a review. I am not above being bribed._**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Max is tired.

Tired of running. Tired of fighting. Tired of being afraid.

He is tired of turning away from the place and the people who make him feel _alive_. No matter how far he goes, how long he stays away, he always feels the pull.

And so he has made his decision: he is coming back home.

To stay.

He's not sure when he started to think of the Citadel in that term, but it is the one place on this godforsaken earth where he feels safe, and welcome.

If that isn't home, what is?

He resolved to go back two days ago, while surrounded by the carnage that was yet another group of seemingly good people he couldn't save.

Instead, he had avenged them.

Now he sits behind the wheel of an old Mach 1 Mustang, streaking across the desert on his way back to the stronghold.

It feels good to be driving a car again. He still misses his Interceptor. For a long time, it was one of few constants in his life.

But the Mach 1 is a good car. Sturdy, strong and fast. It is not enough, weighed against the lives lost to obtain it, but he is practical enough to take it despite his guilt. And the bastards who drove it will never hurt anyone again. Max saw to that.

He crests the last ridge before he'll see it, far away on the horizon, and his heart speeds up.

 _Almost there._

His heart skips a beat as he sees it.

A plume of black smoke rises from the stronghold.

He may already be too late.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It takes lifetimes to cross that plain, even driving so fast he can barely maintain control. As he draws closer, the picture of what is happening becomes clearer.

Vehicles circle outside the wall, and those on board are hurling explosives inside.

Max assumes there are people on the wall shooting back, but he is still too far away to see.

Smoke and flames rise from the Citadel, and dust roils up from beneath the wheels of the vehicles outside, partially obscuring Max's view of the battle.

Closer, he sees that the walls are still standing. The gates have not been breeched. The assailants are doing damage, but they have not penetrated into the Citadel.

He decides he'll do more damage on foot, and alters his course, coming up next to the towering rock pillar and abandoning the car in the shade there. He takes the distributor cap, ensuring it is useless to anyone else.

Thanks to the rage-induced vengeance that earned him the car two days earlier, he has plenty of weapons.

He throws them into a bag, tosses the distributor cap in on top, and slings the bag over his shoulder.

The dust they're kicking up is the perfect cover, for both them and himself. The wall is long, and depending on the spot, between twenty and thirty feet high. It is manned only sporadically at this end, and the assailants are taking advantage.

Max makes quick work of the first three trying to scramble up the uneven barricade, killing each silently and quickly with a knife. He grabs the foot of a fourth, pulling the man down on top of him. They tumble in the dust, rolling and punching until Max pulls the handgun from his lower back and ends the tussle with a single shot to the man's chin.

He picks up the bag, having lost it in the scramble, and starts to make his way towards the moving vehicles.

Shots ring out here, and engines whine and rumble. Both the attackers in the vehicles and the defenders on the walls are shouting in their battle frenzy. Their cries echo off the walls.

The attack seems to be focused on the area around the gates. They are only ten feet tall, and the obvious weak point.

The defenders seem denser there. He can see people atop the wall, firing on the cars, but in the smoke and dust nothing beyond that is distinct.

He moves low to the ground, waiting for one of the vehicles to drive close enough for him to hop on. The dust is thick, and he can hear the rumble of an engine approaching. He barely has time to dodge to the side and dive onto the roof, wrapping his hand around the opening in the passenger window to hang on. The car fishtails from side to side as the driver tries to shake him, and three bullets narrowly miss him as they come through the roof. He slides his feet over the side and into the driver's open window, kicking the driver in the face and nailing him hard with an elbow to the jaw on the way in.

It gives him just enough time to grab the drivers's handgun, turning it against the man. It blows the top of his head off and coats half Max's face in blood.

Max kicks the man's foot off the gas pedal and steers them away from the wall before opening the driver's door and pushing him out onto the ground.

He pulls off the bag of guns and sets them in the passenger seat, riffling through one-handed. He pulls out three flares and wedges them into the space between the cushions and quickly grabs three handguns, ensuring that the clips are full. He puts two in the pocket in the door, grabs the third in his right hand, and puts the car in gear.

The other vehicles are driving back and forth along the wall, or turning continuous erratic circles by the gate.

Two cars are sitting idle, but there are over a dozen more, and between kicking up dust and launching smoke bombs, they are making it nearly impossible to see.

Max turns his car to follow a truck with a mounted gun and three men standing in the box. They are firing at random and shouting. He matches its speed, just off the passenger-side flank. Three precise shots just below the gas cap, and he sees fluid leaking down.

Perfect. He waits for the truck to turn away from the wall before lighting one of the flares and tossing it into the vapour trail. He pulls away from the vehicle as it lights on fire, and seconds later explodes.

It adds even more smoke to the chaos.

He manages to pull a similar maneuver with another car before they start to catch on. Three vehicles break away from the siege and are now in pursuit of _him._

Good. Take the heat off. That's what he's here for.

Except that now there are bullets flying, and they're aimed at him. He slings the bag back over his shoulder and throws the two guns back in. He still has three shots in the one in his hand. Deliberately driving through the black smoke that rises from one of his previous victims, he swings the car around hard, driving it into one of his pursuers and wedging it between the burning car and the one he's driving. He fires a single shot through his own back seat and into the gas tank, hearing the hiss of gas releasing. Popping the last flare, he leaves it on the driver's seat.

He runs for one of the inert cars, diving across the roof and curling into a ball behind the driver's front wheel. The ground shakes as the car he'd been driving goes up, and two more explosions follow within a few seconds.

He takes a deep breath. His ears are ringing and his throat and lungs and eyes burn from the smoke. One vehicle is indistinguishable from the next as it billows black across the landscape. He staggers further from the chaos, desperate to take a breath of clean air.

The haze clears in front of him and he takes that precious breath.

And realizes that he's missed the true danger.

A massive armoured big rig thunders out from behind the plateau. It has an enormous cow catcher on the front, coming out to a sharp, axelike point. It is a giant, lethal battering ram. Then it turns.

A string of expletives trail through Max's head as he sees that the back of the rig is worse than the front. It is a giant ramp, starting behind the rear wheels, and raising up over the cab. If it can even get wedged in the gate, the other vehicles simply have to drive up the back to get inside the Citadel's walls.

He staggers back to the truck that was his protection in the blast, pulling the driver from the seat. Whoever on the wall that hit him was a damn good shot. Right through the temple.

The dark rig is turning wide to line up for the gate. The smoke and dust are so heavy that it's likely no one on the walls have spotted it.

There's not much they could do if they did, anyways. The windows on the rig have been replaced with sheets of metal with thin openings to see through. Only a very lucky shot could stop them.

Or a fast enough vehicle, aimed just right.

Max buckles his seatbelt, pulling hard on the band to ensure it is tight.

The rig is coming straight on towards the wall, picking up speed. Max shifts the truck into drive and turns it around hard, spinning the dual set of rear wheels.

He aims for just behind the front wheel. If he can jam the truck up there, he should be able to roll it at best, render it un-driveable at worst.

Either way, this is going to hurt.

He pins the gas pedal to the floor, and at the last second wraps his arms overtop the steering wheel, pressing his head down.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The sound of the crash is deafening, and the smoke is so thick that those on the wall can't even tell what's happening until the semi comes to rest upright with its door against the wall, its trailer rolled on its side, now useless.

 _Dammit_ , Furiosa thinks from her perch above the wreckage. She hadn't even seen it coming.

The assault had come out of nowhere. They must have approached under the cover of the storm the previous night and hidden around the other side of the towering rocks, because the Citadel had no warning. One second everything was fine, the next there were grenades and smoke bombs coming over the wall.

Inside, they'd armed everyone willing to hold a gun.

In truth, they could simply have retreated to the upper level and left their attackers howling in impotent rage, but there was simply no time to evacuate everyone. She was not willing to give up one inch of her home to these savages.

They'd been holding up. There were casualties, but the wall still stood. She knew that the gate was the key, so they'd put most of the defenders there and rolled some of the derelict vehicles to prop up the gate from within.

Aside from taking out a few vehicles, they hadn't made much headway.

Then the explosions. Furiosa was ashamed to admit that she had _no fucking clue_ what was happening out there. It was all smoke and dust and explosions and the sound of her own people's guns. Not that they could get any clear shots in all that.

And last, a mobile battering ram appeared, already incapacitated by the time it reached the walls. She hadn't even seen it.

If it had succeeded, they would be overrun right now.

Someone out there was watching out for them.

The smoke starts to clear, and the _assholes_ that have tried to take her home are stunned enough by the destruction of their spearhead vehicle that they are taken down quickly. Furiosa orders those gathered inside the wall to drag back the vehicles that are blocking the gate, just enough to fit people through. Those armed with guns swarm out, and make quick work of the assaulting force.

There are over a dozen vehicles smoldering or sitting silent beyond the wall. Her people throw smoke bombs into the rig, and three men come pouring out. They are subdued, face down on the ground, and their hands are tied behind them. A dozen of her people stand over them, guns trained.

It is only then that she notices the wreckage of a brown-and beige truck with its front end wedged under the fender of the rig.

Someone had _literally_ been watching over them.

The passenger side of the roof is caved in, but there is enough of the driver's side left that it is _possible_ that whoever it is that saved them, survived.

The door is crumpled and she has difficulty prying it open. Finally it gives, separating entirely from the vehicle and crashing to the ground. A moan sounds from inside. "Hang on," she says.

She peers in, and he is slumped over the wheel. His face is caked with blood, but she would know this man anywhere.

"Max?"

She pulls one of her knives, cutting the seatbelt. He doesn't seem pinned by anything. She reaches in and cups his cheek. "Come on. Wake up. We won."

He groans again and his eyes snap open. " _Fuck_ ," he says with passion.

"C'mon. Let's get you out of there."

Between them both, they manage to get him clumsily out of the truck.

Once clear of the wreckage, he stands, and winces.

"Are you alright?" she asks, wondering if the crash didn't do serious damage.

He nods. "Seatbelt."

She understands. It is both the reason he is alright, and the reason he is not. He will have vicious bruises later from the impact.

She looks at him, suddenly realising that _he's back_ , and throws her arms around his neck, giving him a welcome but painful hug.

"Missed you too," he says softly, awkwardly patting her back.

Neither of them hears the young man crawl out of the back of the rig. Neither sees the danger.

They both hear the shot.

Fury's eyes go wide and she blinks hard. Her body jerks against his and her breath leaves her in a whoosh. Max catches her as she turns to dead weight in his arms, and all hell breaks loose.

Gunfire sounds all around, as Furiosa's warriors unleash their anger and shock on the prisoners on the ground. The one who fired the shot, hidden in the incapacitated semi, dies with seven bullets in him.

Toast's voice rings out. "Search the vehicles! Make sure there are no more of them!"

About half of those gathered follow the order. The others stare on in shock.

Max's pulls his hand away from her back, and it comes off warm and sticky.

And red.

He stares down at her. She is already growing pale and he struggles not to be lost in a memory. All sound around them is lost as he stares in horror. He yells her name, and shakes her. "Come on, Fury! Wake up!"

Her eyes are wide and unseeing. Her muscles have gone slack. Her weight pulls him to his knees in the sand, and he bends over her. He holds her by the shoulders and is now whispering into her cheek. "Come on, stay with us. Stay with me, Fury. Don't you dare leave me like this. Hold on." He is all but begging now.

There are others crowded around him now. "Doctor," he hears through the rushing in his brain, and he latches on to that hope. He shifts Furiosa's weight and stands, carrying her in his arms.

The pain from the accident is gone in the adrenaline rush. Toast is in front of him. She nods and runs on ahead, shouting.

Sound recedes once more. He carefully maneuvers her through the partly-opened gates before breaking into a run. The crowd he passes presses in behind him, looking on at their beloved leader in shock.

Her head lolls and his sleeve is soaked. The doctor meets them at the entry to the infirmary, and his eyes flash with recognition and concern. He beckons Max to one of the operating rooms, where Max lays her out on the table. Addams hands him a thick towel and instructs him to press it to the wound on her back. A woman is there with them, and she unbuckles the belts around Fury's waist that hold her arm on, removing it and tossing it onto a table by the wall.

The doctor pulls the towel away from the wound, briefly inspecting it and mumbling something about a subclavian vein. "Son," he says to Max, "I'm going to need you to leave."

Max shakes his head. "I can give her blood," he says, choking on the last word. "Universal donor."

"He's injured," Toast says from the door.

"Sorry, son. I can't let you. We have plenty of others who can though, so don't worry." He flashes a look at Toast and turns back to his patient.

"No. I need to stay. I need to _do something_!" he snarls, staring down at his own shaking hands in impotent fear and rage.

"We'll just be in the way," Toast says gently as she takes Max by the arm and leads him out. "We need to give them space to heal her." His eyes linger on the still form on the table as he lets the woman guide his feet.

Three people rush in past them as they make their way outside.

A crowd has already gathered, and one War Boy stands near the front with tears in his eyes. "She must be Witnessed!" he says desperately.

Max is going to throw up, and leans heavily on the wall, sucking gulps of air as his shoulders heave.

Toast lets go of Max's arm to take the hand of the Boy. "She is not alone. If she is to go, she will be Witnessed by many. She is Awaited." The Boy nods and swallows. She pats him on the arm.

"I need to _do something_ ,"growls Max after the panic recedes enough to speak.

"You're injured," she reminds him.

His eyes bore into hers, and she sees the edge of madness there. "Fine. Come to the wall. There will be plenty to do."

His hands twitch as they walk, and he is breathing harshly through his nose. His eyes are wild, and Toast watches him carefully from the corner of her eye.

The scene when they arrive is organised chaos. People are milling around. The injured and dying groan atop and behind the wall. Beyond, the vehicles are being picked over and War Boys are arguing over who gets to keep what.

Toast abandons him to climb to the top of the wall by the gate. "Everyone! We have work to do!"

"What about Furiosa?" someone asks from the crowd. Max winces at the sound of her name.

"Furiosa is in surgery, but _alive_. We won't know anything for a while." She is remarkably stoic. Or maybe she's just really good at compartmentalising. "She's not going to want to wake up to this mess, so it's our job to get it cleaned up." She spots Capable in the crowd. "Can you organise the wounded?" she asks. The redhead nods.

Capable speaks up. "Anyone who wishes to help the injured, or Witness the dying, with me." A handful of people gravitate to her.

"Anyone who can give blood, get your ass to the infirmary!" Toast yells out after her sister is done. Another group rushes off inside the gates.

"Loud!" she says, pointing to a senior War Boy.

He scurries to stand at the base of the wall beneath her. "Get the tow truck out here and drag the cars inside the Citadel. Any War Boys not helping you can make repairs to the walls."

"Kelly!" This time she points to a hard-looking woman who looks to be in her thirties. She is carrying a rifle like she knows how to use it. "If there are any left alive, I want them to _remain alive_. Do you understand?"

The woman nods, and her flaxen ponytail bobs. "If there are any, put them in isolation and guard them yourself. No further harm unless Furiosa orders it."

"You have my word," the woman replies.

The crowd disperses to do their assigned tasks, and the older of the two surviving Vuvalini appears before Toast as she climbs down off the wall. "Tessa, can you round up all the weapons and make sure they're properly catalogued and stored?"

The woman nods, turning to Max, who's been staring off into space through Toast's speech. "Take Max." The two women's eyes meet, and Toast silently tells Tessa to keep an eye on him, and keep him busy and out of the way.

Tessa knows he's been injured. He's probably in shock and needs supervision. At least this task should keep busy without any heavy lifting.

They pause as they approach the gates, which have been unblocked and are standing open.

Just inside the wall, Capable is kneeling at the side of a white-painted War Boy who is laying on his back with shrapnel protruding obscenely from his side. She has his hand in hers, and is speaking in low tones, stroking his fingers. Her face is a picture of serenity and love as she gazes into the eyes of the dying man.

Something about the sight drives out the image of so-pale Fury on the operating table for a moment, and he feels as though he is witness to something achingly intimate.

"You are Awaited," Capable promises the man, and a peaceful smile spreads across his face. "You have served well, and valiantly. You are brave, and the heroes of old await you in the halls of Vallhalla. Can you hear them?" she asks. "They are calling to you."

The man's eyes drift closed, and his hand goes slack. Capable doesn't let go, even as she reaches to the space above his now-dead body, grasps the air there and pulls it to her heart.

After long moments of stillness, she releases his hand and stands up, wiping tears from her cheeks. She meets Max's eyes with a smile, and he sees in her face peace, and joy, and sadness, and compassion. He doesn't know where she finds room for all that inside.

All he can feel right now is stunned grief, and the panic clawing at his chest.

She leans in and kisses Max on the cheek. "Whatever happens, it will be okay," she assures him.

He shudders. He doesn't want to hear that. He wants to hear that the earth itself will crumble beneath them, should she fall. He feels as though it already has.

"C'mon," Tessa interjects. "We have work to do."

He buries himself in the labor. They search the vehicles, and he is very good at finding hidden weapons. They check the rounds for each, and lay them out side by side next to the gate. When they reach the mangled truck wedged in the wheel well of the rig, he reaches in and draws out the bag full of weapons he left there, spying the distributor cap.

"Care for a walk?" he asks, suddenly desperate to just be _away_ from all this. Tessa nods, the light of curiosity in her eyes, and assigns a nearby War Boy to watch over the weapons they've recovered. She knows the engine part, and wonders what he has in store.

It takes a few minutes to get to where he stowed the car, and his bruised chest is aching by the time they get there.

Finding it difficult to draw breath after the exertion, he leans on the rear fender.

"Nice haul," she says, admiring the car. She takes the distributor cap from him, pops the hood herself and reinstalls it. Coming back around to face him, she grabs the hem of his shirt. "May I?" she asks. He nods.

She raises it to find a wide diagonal band of purple across his chest, and gives him a reproving look. "Back to the infirmary for you. I'm driving."

Max stares at the ground. "I don't want to go back there," he admits after a long silence.

"Well, you're injured, so you're _going_ ," she informs him. He walks around and slides into the passenger seat, slumping and leaning his head back.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He jerks awake as the car shudders to a stop. They are outside the infirmary, and he stares at the dark doorway like it's his tomb.

He doesn't know how long they've been. If she's already…

He can't even finish the thought.

The car door opens and Tessa offers him a hand up. He stares at it for a moment before taking it, letting her pull him creakily to his feet.

She gives him a little push towards the door before climbing back in his car and driving away.

The crowd is thick. There are dozens of injured inside, and easily over a hundred here breathlessly awaiting news on their loved ones.

Cheedo is at the door, acting as both triage and bouncer.

"Max," she says, surprised. "When did you get here?"

"Before… or _during_ … all that," he replies with a vague wave behind him.

" _During_ … That was you, blowing all those cars up."

He nods. "Saw the smoke. Came to help." He's looking down at his feet, and is throat bobs up and down.

"Are you here about Furiosa, or are you injured?" she asks.

He pulls his shirt up enough for her to see the bottom edge of the bruise. She whistles. "Not sure if there's much the Doc can do for that. You're being able to walk is a good sign. But we'll have someone take a look. Go on in."

He pauses in the doorway, grasping her arm. "Is… is she…?" He can't meet her eyes as he asks. He's almost rather not know.

"Hanging in there. It could still go either way, but she's still with us."

He grips the doorway as relief turns his legs to jelly. "Come on," says Cheedo, "I'll find you a place to sit."

There are no beds available. Every space is occupied by people groaning in pain, or attending to the wounded.

He shouldn't be here, he realises. He isn't hurt enough to be.

A waiflike blonde woman steps through the opening to the operating rooms and her eyes light up as she spots him. "Max!" she says, striding across the room and wrapping him in a hug.

He grunts in pain.

"You hurt?" she asks.

He nods.

"Bad?"

He shakes his head. "Bruised from the seatbelt."

She cocks her head, staring at him. He sees the precise moment she connects the dots, and her pupils widen. "You're the one who stopped the truck."

"Yeah."

"You promise you're not hurt too bad?" she asks him.

"Promise."

"Good. Come with me."

He is left trailing after her towards the operating rooms.

She leads him past the room where he left Fury earlier and into the second of the three operating rooms.

And there she is. So, so pale. They've modified the table to hold her upper body up at an angle, and laid a thin mattress beneath her. A bandage is wrapped around her left shoulder, the center stained with blood. There is bruising in the crook of both her elbows, and he sees puncture marks there. She is breathing in short, shallow breaths.

But she is _breathing_. Once again relief threatens to swamp him. Dag grabs him by the arm and half-drags him to the chair by Fury's side. "You can stay here with her. Rest. Relax. That way she's not alone and I can go help with the wounded."

He sits.

"Oh, and since you're here anyways, you can keep an eye on Verdant." She points to a wooden box in the corner. "You don't need to do anything," she adds when she sees the look of panic on his face, "Just come and get me if she cries. I'll be just out there in the infirmary."

She leaves the room before he can protest.

He looks around, anywhere but at its other two occupants, who are in their own different ways making him supremely uncomfortable.

He touches Fury's arm, tentatively. Her skin is cold and clammy. His fingers play over the inside of her wrist, resting there when they feel the steady beat of her blood beneath her skin. It steadies him, and he allows himself to breathe.

She doesn't look like herself. She looks pale, sickly. Weak. It is the one word he would never have used to describe her. Ever.

And yet, there she is.

There is nothing for him to do but wait, and hope.

But the source of all his hope lies on the table next to him, barely clinging to life. He doesn't know how to find it without her. Tears sting the back of his eyes, and his chest aches from more than the bruises.

It is the infant who saves him from succumbing to grief.

Something rustles in the corner, and he raises stiffly from his chair to peer into the box there. A pair of blue eyes stare up at him from a tiny bald head. He strokes her cheek, leaving a dark smudge of dirt. Looking down, he realises his hands are filthy. His left hand and sleeve are almost black with blood. _Hers._

His _everything_ is filthy.

He takes off the jacket first, then decides his shirt is no better off, caked with dirt and blood and who-knows-what else. He moves to the sink in the corner, peeling off his shirt and dumping it and the jacket on the floor by the wall. He takes a few minutes to clean his hands, and face, and chest with the clean water, drying with one of the towels. He looks over at Fury every so often, to ensure she is still breathing.

She is.

Verdant is making noises from her makeshift bassinet, but she doesn't sound upset, so he doesn't go to her until he is clean(ish) and dry.

By the time he is ready to attend to her, she is cooing and squirming.

He leans over and slides his hands under the child, relieved that he is not leaving streaks on the white cloth, and picks her up.

She smiles and it breaks his heart, in the best way. He holds her out in front of him, and she wiggles her arms and legs. "Hello, Verdant," he says before pulling her into his chest, resting her head over his heart, and stroking her hair gently.

It is the perfect balm for his battered soul.

Some minutes later, Dag returns to find him sitting in the chair by Furiosa's side, holding her sleeping baby to his bare chest.

She is struck dumb for a moment, then smiles. The sight of this strong man, whom she has seen kill without a second's hesitation, holding her baby so gently, does funny things to her insides. _Damn. Too bad he's taken._

His eyes are watching her as she stares, and his hand rubs slowly over Verdant's back. Dag notes that he has ugly bruises forming on his forearms to match the one on his chest. "How is she?" Dag asks.

"Which one?" he replies.

She nods to the table. Her baby is obviously doing fine.

"Hanging in there."

"She's a fighter," Dag says.

He stays there all night, even after the Dag takes Verdant from him and goes off to get some rest. He is exhausted, but he does not sleep. If Fury goes in the night, he wants to be there.

Even more than he doesn't want her to die, he doesn't want her to die alone.


	6. The Third Return (Part 2)

_**A/N: Thank you all so much for the feedback! In case I wasn't specific enough, I take my bribes in the form of reviews. Consider me sufficiently incentivised to post this one early.**_

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sometime in the morning, Tessa comes to relieve him of his vigil.

"Have you slept at all?" she asks.

His head shakes negative and drops into his hands. His words come out muffled. "If she… I didn't want her to…"

The older woman understands. "Put your shirt back on," she says with a teasing lilt to her voice, "And go find a place to sleep."

He looks down. Dag came to retrieve Verdant hours ago, and he forgot he wasn't wearing one. The bruise looks awful, and it pounds painfully beneath his skin. He stands up and grabs the shirt from the floor. The tightening muscles of his shoulders and neck protest as he pulls it over his head. One sleeve is stiff with dried blood, but he has worn worse. He looks at the evidence of her draining life with distaste, then pointedly ignores it. Tessa takes the chair, holding Furiosa's hand and murmuring words to her as he passes.

Holding his jacket loosely in one hand, he leans over to press his lips to Fury's temple, beyond caring what the grey-haired woman reads into the gesture.

He wanders through the main room of the infirmary. There is less sound in the room now, fewer people. The beds are still full.

He doesn't have the energy to ride the cage to the top and walk all the way to Fury's room. He wouldn't have the heart to sleep there without her anyways. Not today. Maybe not ever.

So he finds an empty space along the wall outside in the shade, rolls his jacket into a ball, and falls asleep with his head on it, surrounded by the dozens of others waiting there.

It is Dag who wakes him later, holding a plate heaping with food. He realises he hasn't eaten since before the battle a day ago and takes it gratefully, devouring it before saying a word. She sits next to him, watching and waiting with Verdant in a sling across her torso.

"Last night," she says as he sets the plate down, "With her," she nods to the sleeping baby. "You've done that before."

"Yeah."

She doesn't pry, instead telling him that he's good at it.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Thanks."

"Come on. Let's go see how she's doing," Dag says as she rises gracefully to her feet.

It takes Max longer. Today everything hurts. Between the accident the day before and sleeping on the hard ground, his muscles have stiffened up, and the bruises are a steady throbbing reminder of the trauma he put his body through. Eventually he manages to gain his feet, creaking and wincing as he follows the slender blonde through the press of waiting people to the door.

The crowd has slowly dispersed while he slept. There are only a couple dozen hovering outside the building now.

A woman in her thirties stands in the doorway to the infirmary, looking bored. She meets the Dag's gaze and nods. The blonde walks into the dark space beyond.

The woman puts an arm out to block Max entrance. "Sorry, I can't let you in."

Max levels her with a withering glare. She is unmoved, staring right back until Dag returns and places a hand on her shoulder. "This is Max," she tells the woman. "He's a friend. He gets full access."

The woman gives the Dag a confused look over her shoulder, but lets her arm drop and watches as the strange man walks side-by-side with the Sister, their arms brushing. She has never seen or heard of him.

Max is not sure if Fury's colour is better or if he's making up a reason to hope. Capable and Cheedo are standing on the other side of the table, speaking in low tones. He meets their eyes in turn and greets them with a nod. The doctor walks in behind him.

The others in the room look on in silence as Addams checks her over. Finally, he turns to the Sisters. "The bullet went in through her upper shoulder, in the back. It lodged just below her collarbone. There's no organ damage, but she did lose a lot of blood. We had to do transfusions from three different donors."

Max notices the mark on the inside of Capable's elbow. She meets his eyes and nods slightly.

"She's damn lucky. If that bullet had been a hair higher, she'd have bled out before you managed to get her here."

Max swallows hard and his eyes slam shut. Something soft touches his hand, and he finds that Capable is standing at his side. She wraps her hand around his, gripping hard. It is the solid tether he needs at the moment, and he hangs on.

"Right now what she needs most is rest and as much fluids as we can get into her. Hopefully in a few days she'll be walking around again, but she'll have to take it easy for a few weeks. She'll stay here for the next couple of days at least." There is a bag much like the one they'd attached to him the first time he'd come back, snaking clear fluid down into her arm.

"If you'll excuse me, I have other patients to see to," Addams finishes, already turning away.

"Max," the Dag says, "Has anyone taken a look at your chest?"

A quick shake of his head tells her no. "Doctor Addams," she says, "Max here was injured yesterday. Could you take a look?"

"Sure. Let's check you out in the next room."

Max follows him out, sitting up on the empty table in the third room, as ordered by the gruff doctor. Trying to pull his shirt off, he discovers he can't raise his arms above shoulder height.

"Pretty stiff?" the doctor asks.

"Yeah."

"Mind if I just hold your shirt up to look?"

He lets his arms fall to his sides. "Go ahead."

The doctor does, pressing the fingers of one hand into the long raised road of purple that bisects his torso. The man's grey eyebrow shoots up. "Did you have a beam dropped on you?"

"Seatbelt."

"Whatever you hit, you must have hit pretty hard."

"Was trying to."

"Whatever _for_?" Addams asks.

"Seen the wreckage from the battle?" Max asks.

The doctor leans back and lets Max's shirt fall, crossing his arms. "Briefly."

"That semi they were trying to use as a battering ram? I was driving the truck that's inside the front fender."

Addams swears under his breath and probes the bruises harder.

Max hisses air through his teeth.

"I don't think you broke anything, though I can't for the life of me figure out _how."_

"Braced my arms on the steering wheel and got lucky the cab didn't collapse," Max replies.

"You don't live here. This isn't your home," the man says, rolling back one of Max's sleeves without asking.

The statement is true, but for some reason hearing it hurts.

"You come here, get patched up, and leave. Why would you risk your life like that?" As the doctor suspected, the underside of both arms are swollen and blue.

"This is one of the last good places left in the world. It should be protected," Max replies simply.

"So why don't you stay?" asks the man.

"Couldn't before. Thinking about it now." He'd like Fury to be the first to hear that he plans to stay. It seems wrong to say it to anyone else.

The doctor nods, and Dag appears in the open doorway. "She's awake," she says before disappearing again.

Addams beats Max back to the room, going straight to her side to check her vitals.

Max watches from the doorway, leaning on the wall.

Her eyes are open, but they are out-of-focus and pinched around the edges. She moans and turns to where the three Sisters hover at her bedside, and it looks as though that little move of her head is all she can muster the energy for.

"Citadel… safe?" she croaks.

Cheedo clutches her upper arm. "Yes. Safe. We've got everything under control. You just worry about getting better."

A line appears between her eyebrows. "Max?" she asks, though she seems to be speaking _about_ him rather than _to_ him.

"I'm here," he says, moving around the foot of the bed to stand next to the Sisters. They part to let him close, and he wraps his hand around the end of her half-arm, stroking his thumb back and forth just below the crease of her elbow.

She swallows. "Thought maybe that was a dream."

He grabs his shirt with his free and pulls it up high enough to show her the bruise. "Nope."

The corner of her mouth lifts ever-so slightly. "Fool, you have excellent timing." _And incredible luck,_ she adds silently. Her throat is too dry to waste the words. She looks at the Sisters. "Keeping the Citadel running without me?"

Capable steps up next to Max and gently lays a hand on her uninjured shoulder. "We've got this. Rest. Heal."

Addams has retrieved a bottle of water and holds it up for Furiosa. She drinks slowly and carefully, but finishes the entire container.

"If you don't mind, the patient needs her rest. One of you can stay, as long as you're quiet," says the doctor.

The Sisters decide among themselves that Cheedo will take the first shift. Capable and Dag each kiss Furiosa on the forehead in turn before leaving.

Capable takes his free hand as she walks by, tugging gently. "She'll be up for talking later," she promises. Max releases Fury with a gentle squeeze. Her eyes are already closed, and Cheedo has moved around the table to sit in the chair, holding her hand.

Capable keeps hold of him as she leads him out, with the Dag trailing behind them. "You need some sleep," the redhead informs him, releasing him as they step outside. "In a real bed."

He crosses his arms. "Fine. Where?"

His opposition to the idea of staying in Furiosa's room without her is written in every line on his body.

"You can stay with Tessa and Defiance," Dag suggests. They rarely call them the Vuvalini anymore. It brings up too many memories of all those lost on the way.

"Where?" he asks.

"They have a canopy, up in the Green."

That is a long way from Fury. They see the protest in his eyes. "Go up there. Get one good night's rest. Furiosa is already on the mend, and we'll keep an eye on her. Get some sleep, and then you can come back down here and pace, or sleep on the floor, or whatever it is you do," Dag tells him with a little push towards the lift. "Go or I'll have you locked in Isolation until I deem you rested."

The little blonde's gaze is unrelenting, and the way Capable is standing at her back tells him he's outnumbered. "Fine. Show me."

The ride up to the Green is tense. Frustration seethes off Max in waves and he is all but pacing in the swaying cage. The Sisters ignore him in favour of peering at the sleeping Verdant. After they reach the top they lead him through a short tunnel to an open area with rows of young trees. The only time he's been here is when she gave him the tour, months and months ago.

The Vuvalini's sleeping quarters is a simple piece of canvas stretched out from the top of a boulder to the ground. There are two bedrolls beneath, and belongings stacked against the rock face. Defiance is sitting on one of the bedrolls. Her eyes are tired as she spies Max flanked by the two sisters.

"Heard you were here. Got a good look at the carnage you wreaked while I was helping the Boys tow the wrecks in. Nice work," she says.

He nods acknowledgement, and his eyelids are heavy.

"Can he sleep here?" asks the Dag.

Defiance nods to the empty bedroll. "Tessa's doing a shift on the wall. Stay as long as you need to."

The day's grief and pain are catching up to him, and it's all he can do not to fall into the empty bed.

"Wait," says Capable as he starts to lower himself.

He groans, unwilling to delay sleep any longer.

"Let me get that shirt off you. I can get it cleaned while you sleep."

He looks down at his blackened sleeve with distaste, narrowly deciding against asking her to just burn it instead. "Okay." He raises his arms stiffly. "I can't…"

"It's okay. I can do it." She is very gentle as she eases the shirt off him, and avoids touching his skin. Once the garment is off, he collapses bonelessly on top of the bedroll, and is asleep in seconds.

"Keep an eye on him for us?" asks Dag.

Defiance nods. "I have him."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tessa is there when he wakes, with a waiting full plate.

He visits Fury often over the next couple of days, though she is rarely awake and when she is, not for long. She is slowly getting better, and they ease off the constant vigil. He notices her abandoned prosthetic lying on a table in her room in the infirmary and takes it up to the vault, carefully cleaning and oiling it at her workbench.

On one of his visits, he returns it to the side table where he'd found it. He covers it with a towel to keep the dust out. When she is ready for it, it will be ready for her.

He goes into her room in the vault. Just once.

It looks just the same, but it feels _bereft_ without her in it. He can't bear to think of the last time he was there. When he'd woken with her in his arms, alive and healthy.

And then he'd left. Right after she'd asked him to stay.

He notices his grey bracelet around her right wrist the next time he goes to visit. Leaving it had been his apology.

He assumes her wearing it means he's forgiven.

He spends some time in the garage, tinkering with and tweaking his new car. He keeps aloof of the War Boys that work there. They still remind him all too much of hanging upside down, and being strapped to the front of a car with a suicidal madman behind the wheel.

They also remind him of Nux, who was a different person altogether from the dying boy who maniacally asked him to Witness.

Sometimes he misses the kid. Under all the paint and the brainwashing, he had been kind of sweet.

He continues to sleep under the canopy in the Green next to the last of the Many Mothers. After the first night, a third bedroll appears there. He finds himself strangely comfortable sleeping beneath the stars next to the fierce warriors.

He walks the full length of the wall, looking for weaknesses and places that can be reinforced, and returns with some ideas to bring to Fury when she is feeling better.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Four days in, Furiosa is ready to strangle everyone. She is tired of being an invalid, and tired of feeling weak, and she is tired of her friends refusing to tell her anything that is going on outside of the infirmary.

Max recognises her restless energy when he comes by that afternoon. "They still keeping you prisoner here?" he asks.

She replies with a hard glare and he backs away from the table with his hands up, nearly colliding with Doctor Addams.

"Actually," he replies to Max's question, "If you have people nearby to help keep you from overdoing it, there is no reason we can't move you back to your room."

Fury leans her head back and sighs. "Finally."

"Any reason she can't put her arm on?" asks Max.

"None whatsoever. The straps are well clear of her injury. She does need to take it very slow for the first few days. Too much movement can jar the wound, or shift the bandage. If you pull the stitches and reopen the wound and no one is around to help you, you could still bleed out," he adds, addressing Furiosa.

"She won't be alone," Max promises.

"Inviting yourself back to my room?" she asks with a dangerous edge to her voice.

Max ignores her willful misreading of his statement, and both he and Fury miss the doctor's startled reaction to her words.

He'd known they were close, but that explained a _lot_.

"Not at all," Max replies evenly. "There are enough of us around to keep you from having to manage on your own."

"Oh," says Fury, suddenly deflated. She hadn't been truly angry with Max, just frustrated with the situation. She took it out on him simply because he was the nearest target.

One look in his eyes tells her he knows that, and is completely unfazed by it. Part of her wants to hit him for that. The other part is glad he cares enough to put up with it.

He has turned to a table by the wall, and is peeling back a towel to reveal her arm.

Of course it's her arm. She's surprised she didn't recognise the shape before now.

She _has_ spent most of her time in this room sleeping.

Max picks up her prosthetic like it is something fragile and valuable rather than a sturdy tool capable of holding her weight, and carries it to her.

It is _clean._ Meeting his eyes, she cocks her head.

He simply holds it up so she can slide her half-arm into it, awkwardly wrapping the belts around her back for her when she sits up. The mobility on her good arm is restricted by her wound, but she does up the belts herself, shrugging her shoulder to get the straps in place.

Her arm is on once more. She wiggles her fingers, and realises that not only is it clean, it has been carefully oiled. "Your doing?" she asks.

He nods. "Had some time on my hands," he says by way of explanation.

At first she's not sure how she feels about him handling a part of her that no one touches but her. But she realises the care and time he's put into making sure it was ready and waiting, and chooses to accept it for the gift it was intended to be.

"Thank-you."

He shrugs and brings her boots from the corner as she sits with her legs hanging over the edge of the table, and he holds them up with a questioning glance. "Can you?" she asks, hating herself for the kind of weakness that makes such a simple task all but impossible.

He squats down and gets them on quickly and efficiently before standing to help her down off the table, bracing her with a grip on her arm. Her breath hisses between her teeth, and he shifts his hand from her arm to the middle belt that supports her prosthetic, sliding his fingers underneath and holding her up from there instead.

She takes a couple of hesitant steps, and finds that if she is very careful not to move her right arm, walking is possible. It hurts, but Max's hand is steady on her back and she knows if she falls, he will catch her.

All eyes turn to her as they make their way slowly through the infirmary, and Max has the odd impression that they see not a weak, wounded woman, but a triumphant returning hero.

A cheer goes up as they reach the doorway, and the crowd is all awe and smiles. They part reluctantly for their injured leader. Max and Fury are painstakingly making their way to the lift when Toast jogs up from the direction of the wall.

"Why didn't you call for one of us to help?" she asks irritably, addressing both of them.

"She's impatient," is Max's reply.

Toast nods and sighs. "You got her?" she asks Max.

He adjusts his grip on the belt and nods.

Fury's legs are shaking now, and she looks pale again. "Are you alright?" Toast asks before Max gets a chance to.

Fury nods with a hard swallow. "Just tired."

The cage door rattles as they climb in, and Max knows she won't be able to keep her balance on the shaky ride up. A glance to Toast asks the dark-haired woman to take over steadying Furiosa, and she steps in to brace the taller woman without speaking.

Max sits down in the cage with his back wedged into the corner and motions Toast to lower Furiosa to his lap.

"What are you doing?" Fury asks over her shoulder.

"Making you a comfortable seat," he replies, "Before you fall over."

They get her settled in between his legs with her back to his chest, their legs stretched out in front of them.

The last time he held her like this he'd thought she was dying. He knows she's okay now, but the feelings that creep up as he sits there are hard to push back down. He closes his eyes for a moment, reminding himself where they are and that she is healing already.

Toast stands in the other back corner, steadying herself with a hand wrapped around the bars. Furiosa is silent, leaning her head back against Max's shoulder with her eyes closed against the nausea that the swaying lift brings.

"Easy," he says into her ear, stroking his hand over her short hair. "Just a little longer and you can go back to sleep. In your own bed."

She sighs, taking long even breaths through her nose.

Toast has to help Furiosa walk when they reach the top, as she and Max support her from both sides. Her steps are dragging and her face is covered in sweat as they reach the room. Max holds her steady as Toast undoes the buckles at her waist, gently removing her metal arm and hanging it in its place by the bed.

Once she is free of the prosthetic, Max lowers her down to the bed and removes her boots. Toast opens the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulls out an old ratty quilt and lays it over her leader, tucking it in around the woman's body as Max slips the pillow under her head. Fury is sleeping before they're done.

Max and Toast leave the room by unspoken agreement, pausing at the other end of the hall to talk. "I'm going to need to find the Sisters and let them know she's out."

"I'll stay," Max offers.

Toast nods and heads out of the vault, while Max moves the chair next to the bed and watches Fury sleep.

Capable and Dag find him there, hunched over with his head in his hand, elbow braced on his knee. Fast asleep.

The strain of being moved no longer shows on Furiosa's face, and she is peaceful in repose.

The Sisters decide to leave them in peace, asking Defiance, who is tending the plants within the dome, to keep an eye on them both.

Max wakes hours later to the sound of a clearing throat. Cheedo hands him a laden plate and gestures with her head towards the door. "My turn," she whispers.

His neck is stiff from the awkward position, and it cracks a couple of times as he stretches. He takes the plate with a nod of thanks and leaves the room with a quick glance to ensure that Fury is okay.

She is.

He eats at her work table, something that will soon become habit for him.

He doesn't notice the bedroll laid out against the wall just outside the corridor to her room until he is done eating. The bedroll has a green duffle bag sitting at the foot.

He smiles and whispers, "Tessa."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Max wonders how Fury didn't go mad from sheer boredom during the days she stayed with him here. It's been a day and a half and he's had to go down to the garage twice just to make himself stop twitching.

For a man so accustomed to moving for so long, sitting still feels like death. Out in the wasteland, sitting still will literally kill you. In here, not so much.

Addams makes the trip up once a day to check on Furiosa. He changes her bandage, and seems pleased with her progress.

Two days after returning to her room, Fury is already trying to get back to work.

She snaps at the ones watching over her, and by mutual assent they cancel the bedside watch. Someone is always in the vault, but they leave her to her peace in the bedroom.

Max has been sleeping in the bedroll by the wall since he found it there. He finds it comforting to be close enough to aid, should Fury need it. She stopped accepting help after two days, and stopped needing it after four.

She can now sit up, eat, and dress herself without assistance. He never bothered offering to help her dress, leaving that to the women. The thought is too awkward to consider, and she'd likely kill him before letting him try.

That temper he encountered when they first met has returned. In full force.

On day five of her recuperation in the vault, she wakes Max with a nudge of his boot with hers. "I'm going down to take a tour of the damage," she informs him. "I assume you're my current keeper?"

He blinks up at her, not ready for conversation three seconds from waking. "Huh?"

She turns and makes her way through the tunnel. "I'm going," she repeats, and her voice echoes down the tunnel. "If you want to come, get to the lift before it leaves."

He scrambles to his feet and jogs after her, dragging a hand down his face.

 _You're in fine form this morning,_ he thinks with a glower at her retreating back, catching up long before they get to the lift.

When they reach the sand, he follows dazedly in her wake. She receives smiles and shouts of greeting everywhere she goes, and the occasional child runs up to hug her legs. The scowl that has been her mask of the last few days doesn't stand a chance against such an onslaught, and she breaks into a smile.

It brings him to full awareness immediately.

A true smile from her is so rare, and it holds him spellbound. It is as good as a shot of adrenaline, and wakes him instantly. He jogs to catch up and is now keeping pace with her.

Defiance is on guard atop the wall by the gate, and she calls down to Furiosa before clambering down, greeting her with the Vuvalini's press of foreheads. "It's good to see you out and about."

"If I had to spend one more day in that room, I may have killed one of my watchers," Furiosa replies wryly.

The blonde Vuvalini meets Max's eyes with a quirked eyebrow that says she thinks he'd have been the first to go.

The tic at the corner of his mouth tells her he agrees.

"So what was the damage?" Furiosa asks.

Defiance's countenance turns grave. "We lost 26 people, mostly War Boys. Another 38 wounded, both of you included."

Fury blinks. She'd forgotten Max's part in the battle. She turns to him and nods to his torso. He obliges, raising his shirt.

The bruise has faded to brown and yellow and green, and takes up an obscene amount of space across his chest. "How does it feel?" she asks.

"The throbbing has stopped. Hurts to the touch still," he admits. "But the stiffness is gone. I'm fine," he adds.

"Good." She turns back to the other woman. "Any prisoners?"

Defiance shakes her head, whipping her blonde braid back and forth. "After you got hit, everyone was killed in the chaos."

Fury nods. "Any vehicles salvaged?" she asks.

"Two trucks, three cars, and the semi. Head to the garage and take a look."

"And the wall?"

"Already repaired. The main purpose in the assault seemed to be to distract us until the rig arrived, so there wasn't much damage."

Fury nods, but something is bothering her. "Why so few? What did they hope to gain?"

"We ran out a scouting party. Found a whole bunch more tracks around the other side of the rock. Looks like there was a lot more waiting for the rig to do its job. Musta high-tailed it out of there when our boy here threw a wrench in their plans."

 _Shit_. Max had been so wrapped up in the battle and the aftermath that he hadn't even thought of that.

Things could have gone so much worse.

"Guess we owe you even more than I thought," Fury says casually as she turns and starts towards the garage.

He grabs her by the arm, gaze intense as his eyes bore into hers. "No. You don't."

She meets his look calmly, searching his eyes. Finally nodding, she replies, "Okay."

He releases her and they keep walking. The sun beats down on them relentlessly and he feels sweat trickle down between his shoulders.

"Max?" she asks, stopping.

The action is so sudden that he walks right past her. He turns around. Her tone does not bode well.

"Mmm?" He reverts to non-verbal communication as his walls go up.

"Why are you back?"

It is a completely neutral, innocuous question, and it sends chills down his spine. He turns his head away from her, staring far away. He swallows hard. Licks his lips. Takes a deep breath.

His words are so soft she can barely hear them. "Decided to stay," he says past the lump in his throat.

There. The words are out. He's said it.

Can't take it back.

It is the hardest decision he's ever made and he is fucking _terrified_.

A hand closes around his, the metal of it warm against his skin. Another touches his chin, gently turning it to face her. His eyes are cast down, so he misses the wetness trailing down her cheeks. Until he sees a single droplet hit the sand at their feet, exploding in a tiny pop of dust.

He looks up, and her smile is brighter than the sun. Her hand slides around the back of his neck and she leans her forehead against his.

He finds his free hand has risen of its own accord and mirrored her action. There is wetness in his eyes as well, though he fights to keep it from falling.

He feels the tightness in his chest uncoil at her next words, and something inside him clicks into place so perfectly he can almost hear it. "Welcome _home_ , Max."


	7. The Third Return (Part 3)

_**A/N: This chapter kicked my ass to hell and back. Up until now, the words have essentially vomited themselves from my brain onto the page, being as the story was boring a hole through my head. This one I had to fight for every word, then discard and rewrite a bunch of my hard-fought work. I hope it does the rest of the story justice.**_

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A quick look at the new additions to the fleet, and Fury is exhausted. They make their way back up to the vault in silence, both staggered by their earlier conversation. He hangs back as they reach the entrance to her room.

Until she reaches down, picks up the green duffle, and carries it in with her. He follows, watching as she sets it in its old place by the door.

She kicks her boots off, sitting on the edge of the bed, and he discards his jacket, laying it over his bag. In her weariness she fumbles with the buckles down her stomach. He kneels before her, gently pushing her hands aside and unlatching the three belts. Easing the prosthetic off her, he hangs it in its place.

Toeing his boots off, he leaves them on the floor next to hers.

She lays down, easing backwards on the bed, and it is his turn to sleep with his back to the door. Resting his head on his bicep, he stretches out next to her and watches as her eyes drift closed. His follow soon after.

xxxxxxxxxx

When Tessa passes, hours later, she immediately notices the empty bedroll, the absence of the green bag. She wonders if he's moved on already. A quick glance down the hall to Furiosa's room and she smiles, humming softly to herself as she tends the plants under the dome.

xxxxxxxxxx

Her shoulder aches, but it is a pain she is growing used to, and it is less every day. What she is not accustomed to is waking to a feather of warm breath across her cheek.

She smiles as she flashes back to the day before. He is _staying._

The 'he' in question is apparently awake, because his hand starts to play over her half-arm. It is an odd sensation. Most would go for her still-intact hand, but she is lying on it. Max seems to take no issue with handling a point of obvious trauma with gentleness.

He is good at that.

She remembers hitting him in the face with it, and her smile broadens.

"Good thoughts?" he asks, and his voice is gravelly.

"Depends on who you're asking. I seem to recall punching you in the head with the appendage you are currently toying with."

"And this is funny because…?"

Her eyes open, and his are so blue it steals her breath. "When you were trying to steal my rig, and we were rolling around in the dirt trying to kill each other, would you ever think we'd end up like this?"

"I wasn't really thinking straight at the time," he mumbles, and his eyes dart away.

She leans forward to press her lips to his forehead. "I know. You'd had a rough go of it that day."

 _That's putting it mildly,_ he thinks irritably, and a line appears between his eyebrows.

His forehead tingles where she'd kissed him, and her face is inches from his. His annoyance evaporates, unable to stand up next to her tenderness.

She raises up on her elbow, smiling faintly as she watches him fight off the shroud of memory, and repeats the gesture.

This time to his lips.

He freezes as the unexpected contact short-circuits his brain.

xxxxxxxxxxx

In the wasteland, sex is an expression of power or control.

Even when it's not, when it's about two bodies coming together for comfort or release, it is a risk.

At any time you could come under attack. The last thing you need in that situation is to be naked.

Or the person attacking you could be the one you got naked _for_.

In this world, sex can get you killed.

And Max is all about survival.

He has never, not _once_ , considered kissing Fury.

He stopped wanting things for himself a long, long time ago. She is not something he has ever _allowed_ himself to want.

 _Hope is a mistake._

It is enough for him to help those he crosses paths with. It is enough to know that someone out there has hope, and he has helped them to keep it. For a time.

It _was_ enough. Before her.

He tilts his head and leans in, pressing his lips into hers.

xxxxxxxxxx

Furiosa is alone.

In her room.

In a crowd.

Surrounded by the Sisters.

She is always alone.

Separate.

Distant.

Apart.

 _Alone_.

Until a madman barges into her life and steals her truck.

She tried to shoot him in the head twice in those first frantic moments. When he'd gotten the drop on her, he could have easily just killed her and left. She'd given him every reason to.

Instead, he'd left them behind and taken what he needed to live.

It would have been as good as killing her if not for the deadman sequence.

And then he'd let them on board, and later fixed the dragging pod himself. When he and Angharad had been hunkered down in the hole, she was sure he was going to touch the woman. What man could resist such temptation up close? Experience had told her no such man existed.

Furiosa would have stopped the rig to kill him if he had, and doomed them all in the process. But he hadn't. He kept his hands to himself and he'd started driving when she'd told him to.

Then he'd handed her a gun when she climbed back in the cab. The very same man who'd had his own gun trained on her just minutes earlier.

Somewhere between that and Angharad's death, they became a team.

Sometime in those few minutes, she stopped being alone.

The only time she ever feels _not_ alone is when he is with her. A handful of days for an entire lifetime, ever since she was torn from the Green Place.

In Furiosa's experience, sex is a weapon. Something to be inflicted on the unwilling.

She has never considered kissing _anyone_. Ever.

His full lips draw hers like a magnet in this moment, and she finds her lips pressed to his before she can think.

She had no time to consider what it might mean.

Or how it would feel.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

She'd had no idea it _could_ feel like this.

It is only lips. Slightly parted. Breath mingling.

But it coils something in her abdomen and before she knew she wanted anything at all, she wants more.

He moans deep in the back of his throat, and she feels it resonate to the core of her being.

And then they are pulling back, almost as one, blinking at each other in a haze of mutual confusion.

There is a tension between them that has never existed before.

She lowers her gaze, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

With a knuckle under her chin, he tilts her head gently back to meet his eyes. He leans forward, brushing his lips against hers once more, softly.

This kiss is over almost before it begins, but it is gesture of affection, and understanding, and reciprocation. He smiles and nods as she searches his face. "When your shoulder is better," he promises, "I'll do a more thorough job of it." His eyes turn dark, and she knows he has every intention of kissing her senseless (again) after he's had time to process this.

She lets him pull her head to his chest and they lay there with their arms around each other, offering comfort for the intimacy they just shared but weren't prepared for.

It takes minutes for them to relax again. A second's un-thought-out act has shifted the foundation beneath them and they are left reeling.

The slowing beat of Max's heart calms her. He is still Max. He is still here. He is _staying_.

It is her smell that quietens him. Oil and metal and sweat, with just the hint of green and growing things. He buries his nose in her hair and drags it into his lungs. Something has changed between them, but will be alright because he is _home_.

She is his home.

xxxxxxxxxx

The Dag finds them like that, curled and clinging when she and one of the War Pups bring breakfast.

Furiosa and Max must have heard them coming because the squalling of the baby is echoing off the walls, but they make no effort to separate as they hear the two approach.

Max gently detaches himself as they stand in the door, and helps Furiosa to sit up. Dag looks back and forth between the two, seeing that something has changed. She wonders what exactly, and when.

In any case, Max seems to have moved back into Furiosa's room.

Maybe she won't have to be alone anymore.

 _A long time coming_ , Dag thinks. Too long.

"Here," Dag says to Max, foisting her screaming child off on him. "Take her for a walk so I can change Furiosa's bandage."

He nods, taking Verdant and cradling her to his shoulder as though handling a screaming baby is an everyday occurrence.

Fury stares after him in astonishment as he walks down the hall. Dag glances over her shoulder after him and flashes her friend a knowing look. "You missed that when you were out. The first night, I left him with the both of you so I could tend the wounded. Came back to check on her and he was sitting next to you with her sleeping on his bare chest. Well worth the view, by the way," she adds, waggling her eyebrows.

Furiosa blinks, trying to process the mental image she's been given, and shakes her head as though trying to dislodge it. "I don't believe you," she says, and she doesn't. She can't even begin to reconcile the Max she knows with snuggling an infant.

"Believe it. The man is _gorgeous_."

The dark-haired woman rolls her eyes at her friend's deliberate misinterpretation of her words.

And yet he took Verdant just now, holding her in strong hands. He carried her like it was second nature.

Perhaps a squalling child was simply preferable to thinking about the nudity involved in changing her bandage.

She thinks that now he may be quite a bit more uncomfortable at the thought of her nakedness than he would have been yesterday.

Her face heats at the thought of being naked with him.

Dag gives her another knowing look. "Took you long enough," she says simply as she helps the short-haired woman out of her shirt.

"I… what?"

"Don't make me spell it out for you. You and him… it's about time. How does the shoulder feel?" she says, changing the subject to one she knows Furiosa will find more comfortable.

Verdant's echoing cries are fading, replaced by murmuring, incoherent words spoken in low, soothing tones that tumble down the hall from the vault.

"Still hurts, and there's some stiffness in my shoulder. It's healing though."

"Good," replies Dag, probing carefully around the wound in the front where Addams had to cut to get the bullet out. "Try to take it easy as much as you can. Normally your arm would be in a sling for a wound like this…"

She doesn't have to finish the statement. As good as Furiosa is with her mechanical arm, it would be nearly impossible to function without the other one. It isn't in a sling for that reason. So she has to be very careful not to jar it.

"I'm going to rebandage it just for some extra padding and protection for the wound. It hasn't bled in days." Dag proceeds to do as she's said, and has Furiosa wrapped up and back in her shirt in just a couple of minutes.

"Verdant's quiet," says Furiosa as she belts on her prosthetic.

The Dag smiles. "Let's go find them."

He's walking between the rows of plants, swaying gently and rhythmically patting the sleeping baby's back. Verdant's head rests in the crook of his shoulder and she is sucking on her fist.

He looks… peaceful. Calm. Whatever haunted him at the child's birth holds no sway here. Furiosa hangs back, not wanting to intrude on this rare moment for him.

Dag strides up to them and pauses just out of his space, then leans in to kiss her daughter's hair. "Thanks, Max," she whispers, and gently takes her back.

He lets his charge go back to her mother, though his hands are reluctant to let go of this tangible evidence of the hope Furiosa creates in her wake. He meets her eyes across the room and it's as though he stands on the brink of something. A yawning chasm has opened before his feet.

The slightest push will send him over the edge.

But to _what_?

Behind her bright green eyes is serenity, and patience. Instead of giving him that push, she will wait for him to take the step.

"I'm gonna go feed this before it starts up again," Dag says, taking her daughter past the foliage to the bank of windows, sitting down out of sight to feed her.

Max moves to stand by Fury, next to her work table.

"I have to get to work," she says, sensing that he needs some time alone to process the last day. "One of the milk mothers has been causing drama in my absence."

His head rears back and his expression is half-confused, half-disgusted.

Fury sighs. "It's a valuable resource. Joe's death hasn't changed that. The difference now is that the ones who do it now, do it by choice, and their babies aren't taken from them."

His expression relaxes, though he still looks just a tad repulsed.

 _Don't judge me. You washed your face with that stuff._

His gaze has wandered so he misses her silent reproach.

"I'll… ah…" _Do anything but join you for that._

"See you back here, later," she interrupts, saving both him from finding an excuse, and herself from how flimsy it will inevitably be.

"Yeah."

Dag finds him tinkering at Furiosa's bench a few minutes later.

She meets his eyes, cocking her head. "You're staying," she says. It is not a question.

His head bobs assent.

"Good," she replies, followed immediately by, "Follow me. If you're staying up here, you're going to need to know where to find us."

She leads him down the tunnels to where she and the other three Sisters have made their home. It is a good-sized room with real mattresses on the floor, and a few dressers against one wall. Clothes and other personal effects are scattered throughout, and there is a crib in the back corner.

"So, like I said. If you need to find one of us, this is where we sleep. We don't get much of a chance to do that, so…" she trails off. "Still…"

He ends up trailing after her for the rest of the day, appearing uninjured at the infirmary for the very first time, among other things. He doesn't speak much, just acts as a scruffy shadow and occasional baby holder. He watches, and learns more about the day-to-day running of the Citadel in a single day than he has over the last almost-year.

He returns to Fury's room long before she does. After cleaning up in the washroom, he drags the green duffle bag over to the bed and riffles around in it. Pulling out a belt and holster, he wraps the belt around the wrought iron headboard, securing the holster there. He goes through the selection of guns he's collected, deciding that maybe he should turn a few in to the armory. Finding a pistol with a full clip, he slides it into its new home.

A knife in its sheath is slid onto the belt, secure and within reach while he sleeps.

He zips the bag and stuffs it under the bed before picking up his jacket and draping it over the back of the chair.

Only then does he kick off his boots and settle onto the bed. Years of little or no sleep have taken their toll and exhaustion sucks him down quickly in this place that very nearly feels safe.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Milk mothers. War boys. Addams. Even the Vuvalini have given her grief today. Just over a week she's been out, and the place is still standing, but it is not running as smoothly as she'd like. It will take days for everything to get back to normal, and they now have the extra concern of the group willing to mount a full-on assault on the Citadel. She sighs as she rides the cage up, a solitary figure in the darkness.

The hallways are fitted with lights, though only the barest minimum to make it possible to navigate. After nearly ten months, she could find her way in the pitch dark anyway.

She trails her fingers along the edges of the leaves in the long hanging troughs as she passes. Once upon a time she'd fled this place to find the paradise where she was born, only to find it destroyed. Just like everything else in this miserable world. Just like her mother, and her childhood.

Torn from her in one cruel blow. In both instances.

She had led the Wives to the wasteland to die, chasing a mirage. In that moment, she had lost hope.

Found it again, or something like it, in the plans she and the Vuvalini made that night, to flee across the salt.

But it hadn't really been hope. It had been something to do. Something to focus on rather than despair.

Better than nothing, in any case.

And then his plan. Even crazier than hers to smuggle the Wives out of the Citadel and make a break for it. Run a single truck and a few motorcycles back through three war parties, trap the pursuers in the canyon, and take over the Citadel.

Nux had said it felt like hope. More like suicide to her, but a chance to take that bastard out with her, and maybe with a supreme turn of luck, enough might survive and succeed.

She stops to look around now, turning slowly. The troughs hang overtop each other, just like they did when _he_ was in charge.

But that is one of the few things that remains. Her Green Place was destroyed alongside the rest of the world, but she has built a new one here.

In the wake of the destruction of her hope, came hope for so many more than the handful she had rescued.

This isn't what she'd dreamed of, but in many ways, it is better.

She passes through the entryway into the vault, and it is silent inside. The bedroll that occupied the space to the right of her bedroom doorway is gone. She lingers in the bathroom after washing, some part of her apprehensive at returning to her room.

Which is ridiculous. She straightens up and strides down the hall, no longer allowing herself to procrastinate.

He has made himself at home, she notes as she spies the gun and knife added to the bed, and the jacket over the chair. It suddenly feels like _their_ room, and she knows he has done these things very deliberately. Essentially, he has told her he's moved in.

He is lying on his side next to the wall, arm thrown over his head and facing her. She hangs her arm up and slides in next to him, allowing her back to press into his front. His arm comes down and wraps around her waist, pulling her closer, and his lips press to the back of her neck. He mumbles her name, sluggish and sleepy.

She rests her arm over his, and joins him in slumber.

xxxxxxxxxxx

She wakes up in the same position, but with one marked difference: there is evidence pressed against her that her new roommate is most assuredly a _man_.

This particular… complication… is unprecedented in their relationship to date. She has no idea how to deal with it.

Every once in a while, Max know exactly how to handle a situation.

This is one of those times.

"Fury?" he asks.

"Mmm?" she replies. Tension radiates off her body, and she can't seem to form proper words.

"Need to use the bathroom," he replies, pushing himself up and half-rolling, half-climbing over her to get off the bed. The tension leeches out of her by degrees as his socked feet make their retreat.

The air flows from her lungs in a relieved _whoosh_ and she sits up, scrubbing her hand over her hair.

That is how he finds her, sitting on the bed with her head in her hand. He sits next to her. "Fury," he says quietly.

She takes a deep breath and doesn't reply. His hand moves to rest on her knee, slowly and carefully, as though he is afraid she will flee.

She is not afraid of him. Not physically anyway. It is the way she _feels_ that scares her.

"I… she finally replies. "I don't know how to do…" she waves her hand back and forth between them, "This. Us. You know…" She grits her teeth with a frustrated sigh.

He tilts her chin towards him, and his lips hover a breath from hers. "Do you trust me?" he asks.

She nods, swallowing.

"Then why don't we figure it out together," he offers, closing the distance between their mouths ever-so-slowly, until they are touching, half-parted.

Her hesitation evaporates as she angles her head, opening her mouth. Her hand comes up to anchor at his jaw, pulling him closer.

He obliges, tilting his own head and leaning in.

She is insistent, nipping and devouring him, as though she is simply eager to get this done and over with.

He slows, tasting her deliberately, savouring the moment. His hand reaches up to hers, stroking his thumb gently across her palm and down her wrist in a feather-light caress.

She takes the cue, relaxing into him and slowing down to enjoy this, just this.

His unhurried hands tell her that no matter what happens next, this, right now, is important. _Worth enjoying._

Slowly, while their mouths explore each other, so do their hands. He lays back on the bed and she follows him down, her chest pressed to his. Their hearts beat frantically against one another as their bodies begin to remember a dance as old as time. They teach each other the steps as they go.

Fury doesn't remember climbing on top of him, but she finds herself there. His hands knead the flesh beneath her ass, and a pressure builds where their lower bodies are pressed together. He touches the hem of her shirt, meeting her eyes with a question.

She nods, reaching her hand down to help pull it off herself. He does it slowly, caressing his hands over her ribcage as the garment slides up. He watches, eyes dark as she reveals herself to him.

She is utterly beautiful.

The white bandage is stark and foreign on her skin, and he takes the time to press his lips over the fabric there, honoring her pain.

After tossing her shirt on the floor, his hands return to rest on her ribs, just beneath her breasts. They are high and small, and one is partially obscured by the bandage. His thumbs slide across her nipples, the faintest brush of touch, and she arches into it, moaning.

He kisses her harder, asking for more, and she obliges. Her hand strays to his waist, sliding beneath his shirt to caress over his hard abdominal muscles, and he sucks in a breath, making an animal sound in the back of his throat.

The rest of their clothes go quickly, tossed in a jumbled heap on the floor, and she is naked above him. He steadies and guides her with his hands on her hips, but lets her set the pace.

She angles down over him, panting and glowing in a sheen of sweat, and lowers onto him slowly, wanting more but needing and taking the time for her body to adjust.

Finally their bodies are as close as two may be. As one, they move, and it is slow exploration and wonder.

She had no idea it could be like this. She has no way of knowing that this is how it is _supposed_ to be.

Their moans echo off the walls and as they crest together their hands gently hold the other's face while their mouths tell each other what their voices cannot. Not yet.

For now, this is enough.

It is more than enough.

It is everything.

When they coil around each other in the aftermath, there is wetness on both of their faces. Neither acknowledges this.


	8. Home

One would never guess that anything has changed between them.

The steady camaraderie that existed before, the easy understanding, are still there, unaltered.

If anything the edge that formed between them over the last day has disappeared, making them more relaxed.

They go about their days separately once again, and this time he seeks out Tessa and asks if he can be of help. She quirks an eyebrow at this, but he is making an effort, so she gives him a thorough tour of the Green, pointing out and naming plants and flowers and trees. She tells him the names of those tending the crops, and shows him the chicken coop.

The animals were a welcome addition to Citadel, and their population is being carefully cultivated. He grins as the woman who'd brought them comes out to speak proudly of her poultry and she recognises him.

It is a brief reunion, and she doesn't call him Max. Tessa notices. "If you plan to live here, perhaps you could start telling people your name?" she teases.

He remains close-lipped on the subject.

 _Baby steps,_ the Vuvalini thinks to herself.

He is trying.

She shows him all the work they've done converting the dome to a greenhouse. Most of the plants within are the ones that the Keeper of the Seeds brought.

Not quite all the way. Dag had to take on her treasures, leaving the older woman smiling and lifeless in the War Rig.

The legacy of the Many Mothers lives on here, where the newest of their ranks conceived her child in slavery.

A child she now raises in freedom, among the plants of her foremothers.

Plants aren't really Max's thing, but it is a peaceful day, and he understands more of his new home.

Once more he makes it to bed before her, though this time not by much.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sometime in the night, one or the other wakes and the casual touch they shared while sleeping turns deliberate, and they retrace the steps to the dance they performed that morning.

They are lovers now, their bodies not only for themselves but each other, and they are eager to share.

During waking hours, they are the same as they were. There are no little touches or heated looks. No public kisses of possession or even affection.

This part of themselves they only show each other within the confines of their room.

It is _theirs_ now. A place to touch and be touched. A place of comfort and closeness and surrender.

They work, often separately, during daylight hours, and in the faded light they come together. Often they fall asleep clothed, too tired to do anything but tangle their bodies together and succumb to exhaustion.

But some time each night their clothes come off, sometimes achingly slowly, sometimes in a heated rush of teeth and nails, as their bodies claim pleasure long denied them.

Every night.

It is like this for a handful of days.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Max wakes thrashing, a rare occurrence for him within these walls.

Fury's eyes snap open and she is sitting up, grabbing for his flailing hand and saying his name.

He stares wildly around the room, searching desperately for something. His eyes alight on hers, and he takes a long, shuddering breath.

She cups his cheek and leans her forehead to his. "I'm here."

His breath hitches on a sob and she finds herself crushed to his chest. He buries his face in the crook of her shoulder and he is _shaking_.

She holds him tightly, letting him fall apart in her arms. Her chest aches in the face of his anguish.

"Hey, hey. I've got you. I've got you, Max. It'll be alright," she says as the words tumble from her mouth, soft and gentle.

His choking words come back to her, "I thought I lost you."

xxxxxxxxxxx

All he can see is blood. It stains his hands and spreads in an ever-widening pool beneath her still form. Her eyes are open and staring, though nothing remains behind them. Her skin is pale and sallow, and her arms flop lifelessly as he holds her, pressing his face to her neck and screaming his pain into her cold, clammy skin.

Except he's not. His arms are around a warm, vital, breathing person. And her arms are around him. She murmurs a string of soothing nonsense as though he was a child with a nightmare.

In this moment, isn't that precisely what he is?

The dream was so real. An amalgamation of his worst memories and his greatest fear that leaves him reeling.

She is not his dead wife. She is not his dead son. She is alive and warm and holding him like she thinks he's going to drift away.

Sometimes he thinks that too.

So he clings and tries to convince himself that this is reality and the other is the dream.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She clings and tries to tell him with her words and her voice and her arms and her smell, that he is home, and he is safe, and this is the one place in the world that he is _allowed_ to fall apart.

He spills out the grief he's held in so fiercely, and it soaks her shoulder.

He shakes, and shudders, and murmurs incoherently into her neck.

He has held in so much, for so long. It takes time to get it all out.

She is patient, rocking him gently back and forth as she strokes her fingertips through the hair at the nape of his neck.

This is good. This is right. He has needed this so badly.

She holds him long into the night until his sobs subside and exhaustion reclaims him.

xxxxxxxxx

In the morning, she asks him the question that will break them both.

They eat in companionable silence, both perched on the bed. When they woke this morning, she wordlessly told him with gentle touches and soft smiles that she thinks no less of him for what transpired the previous night.

The dream has left him raw and shaken, and he is on edge.

She hates herself for the words she is about to speak.

"Max?"

Her tone has his shoulders tensing as though for a blow. She sees his reaction but asks anyways.

"What would you do if I died?"

His eyes close and he hunches in on himself. "Don't ask me to think about that."

The memory of the dream is too fresh, too painful. _How can she ask this so soon after…?_

Before this moment, he would never have described her as cruel.

She puts her hand on his knee and he jerks away and backs against the wall, out of reach. "It's important."

"Why?" he asks, and his eyes are angry and bore into hers. "Because it _hurts_?"

Her eyes flash as she replies, "I need to know that if something happens to me, you will be alright. That you won't just up and leave. The people here need you."

"They've gotten on fine without me so far," he shoots back.

"How many lives did you save by taking out that rig, and the other cars before it?"

His eyes slide away from hers and she watches the muscles in his jaw flex.

"All that time you were out there I didn't know if you were alive, or dead, or ever coming back. You got to leave and know that me and the Sisters and everyone here would be safe without you. You never had to wonder if I was alive. I had to do it _for three hundred days_!" Having finally given voice to the fear she's had since he left the first time, she lurches off the bed and starts to pace the room.

She looks at him again and she is livid. Enraged like the time she tried to blow his head off. Twice. "If you die, I will _survive_. I will continue on, because there are thousands of people who depend on me and that doesn't change just because I feel like the other half of me is gone. These people look to me for hope, and that is more important than how I feel about _you_."

He opens his mouth to speak and she interrupts. "One of these days you're going to have to stop surviving and start _living_. I want to be your partner, not your addiction, Max. So if I die I need to know that you will stay, and you will be hope for these people, instead of running off and getting yourself killed."

She stands in the center of the room, clenching her teeth and breathing hard.

He stares at her, and the weight on his chest is threatening to crush him. He can't stay at the Citadel if she's dead, and he sure as hell couldn't be hope for anyone without her.

She is his hope. Without her, there is none.

He meets her eyes, and despair has replaced his anger. "I don't know if I can do that," he replies honestly, quietly.

Best to do it quickly. Get the pain over with.

Never mind that it's already making it hard for him to breathe.

She rebuilds herself before his eyes as anger fades to resignation, and she squares her shoulders. "I have work to do," she says, looking straight into his eyes. Then she turns on her heel and leaves the room.

xxxxxxxxxx

Furiosa stays away for as long as she can, keeping herself busy well into the next morning. By the time she makes it back, she is so exhausted she can barely walk.

His things are gone from their room, and it is solely hers again when she returns. As she knew it would be.

For the first time, she is not sure if she will see him again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Always before, there was this little hollow place in her chest that told her he was gone. Even from the time they took the Citadel. Just an empty space she carried with her wherever she went.

That space has turned to an aching, bleeding wound, and she wonders that no one seems to see it.

The Sisters notice his absence from her room, and she informs them that he is gone. They do not pry, but each of them aches for her.

Dag is angry. Capable is sad, but understanding. Cheedo is confused. Toast is resigned.

For a few days Furiosa was happy, and she deserved to be. Still does.

Life goes on.

She takes his bracelet off and leaves it on her dresser where Max left it before, not sure if she does it so some part of him is still there in the room they shared, or because she no longer wants to carry it with her.

By the end of the third week she is all but climbing the walls, desperate to escape the emotions that are eating her alive from the inside.

She is arguing with Toast as she enters the garage. "I haven't been on a run since we took over, and if I don't get to drive something soon, I'm going to snap and kill someone."

"I get that," Toast replies, "I'm just concerned that in your current state of mind…"

Furiosa flashes a warning look that could peel paint. Her temper has been particularly sharp lately.

"My current state of mind is exactly why I need this. I need to get it out of my system."

Toast nods. "Alright. You want to drive the Rig?"

Furiosa smiles, and it is genuine. "No, Toast. I'm not asking for your baby. I'll drive escort. I just need to get behind the wheel again."

Toast's posture relaxes noticeably, and Furiosa realises that the real reason for the argument is that she was afraid that Furiosa would take her old job back.

"Why don't you go look over the tanker, and I'll see if I can't find a War Boy willing to loan me his car."

Toast rolls her eyes as she makes her way to her rig, knowing as well as Furiosa did that every man in the place would fall all over themselves for the honor of having their leader drive _their_ car.

Furiosa looks over the fleet without announcing her plans. The War Boys proudly tout the magnificence of their vehicles, and she is suitably impressed. She doesn't consider Immortan Joe's Gigahorse. It is massive and impressive and not what they need for a simple supply run.

She spies the car in the back, and immediately is drawn to it. Clean lines. Not a lot of modifications. It looks like it was designed for speed, not assault. It is perfect. She opens the door and slides behind the wheel, asking through the still-open door who it belongs to.

It is the first vehicle she's looked at that didn't come with its own walking boaster.

A voice comes from the back seat, and it is so achingly familiar that a lump rises to her throat. "Mine," it says.

xxxxxxxxx

Her words ring through his head as he packs up his stuff. It doesn't take long: he just has to drag his duffle out from under the bed, unwind the belt from the headboard and toss the gun and knife into said duffle bag, and retrieve his jacket from the chair.

It is done in minutes, and he makes a beeline for the lift, taking it down alone.

He has every intention of taking his car and leaving, but his car has been jammed into the back of the garage and is completely blocked in.

He is not about to ask them to move twenty vehicles just so he can leave, and he's not leaving the car behind.

At first, this is why he stays.

He folds down the back seat, and finds it a comfortable enough place to sleep.

The War Boys are proud of their vehicles, and he begins to help them tweak their rides. He doesn't give them his name, and they seem fine with that particular quirk. He stays well clear of the semis where they are parked on the open side of the garage, knowing Toast drives one.

For some reason, he doesn't want anyone to know he hasn't left. In any case, he needs to forge his own place in the Citadel if he plans to stay.

He's still not sure if he is staying or going.

He stands in the food line with all the former Wretched, and is careful to never stand in one where any of the Sisters are distributing.

He is recognised, but only by the family that brought him in with the bullet in his back all those months ago. They thank him profusely for saving them, and greet him like a long-lost friend.

Their blonde little girl is growing so fast, and is all smiles.

He thanks them for bringing him in, essentially saving his life, and finally gives them his name.

For weeks, he works in the garage and tries not to be noticed. He would volunteer for a shift on the wall if he wasn't afraid to be recognised by Toast or Cheedo. He is itching to go on a supply run, but that would out him as well.

All the while, he tries to forget Fury.

The sound of her voice.

The green of her eyes.

The feel of her skin against his.

The words she spoke last.

He is utterly unsuccessful. Her memory follows him like a ghost.

The last thing he expects is to be discovered while sleeping in his own car.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Her eyes flash to the rear-view mirror, and she sees blue eyes in a tanned face. He is half-covered by a blanket, lying across the flat deck in the back.

She blinks and turns to peer around the edge of the driver's seat.

 _Yep, it's Max._

It is a relief that she hasn't lost her mind. She turns back to meet his eyes in the mirror once more.

A furrow appears between her eyebrows. "I thought you left."

A matching furrow appears on his forehead, followed by the faintest twitch of the corner of his mouth. "Couldn't get my car out."

Her eyebrows shoot towards her hairline. "You couldn't fix the car in three weeks?"

The twitch spreads into a half-smile. "Runs fine. I said I couldn't get it out."

"You do know the others move, right?"

He reaches up and hits the lever that slides the passenger seat forward, somehow gracefully crawling around it to get out the passenger side, before sliding the seat back and sitting down.

They both stare out the windshield at the carved rock that is the back wall of the garage. "Thought I'd give being here another chance. On my own."

She understands that this is his way of telling her he took her words to heart, and he is trying. For himself this time. And that he needed to be anonymous for a while to see where he fit here in the Citadel.

"What have you been doing these weeks?"

"Helping with the cars. And hiding. Hiding, mostly," he admits with a wry twist to his mouth.

"You should ride out with the supply runs," she says seemingly out of the blue. Neither looks at the other in the close confines of the car.

"Been thinking about it. Hard to do without being noticed, though."

"There's a run tomorrow, to Gas Town. You should go."

"Is there room in the rig?" he asks.

"Yeah. Toast usually has the cab to herself."

"If she can stand the company, I'll ride with her. You take the car."

She turns to examine his profile, tilting her head slightly. "You sure?" she asks.

"Overheard you talking. You should drive. Have some space to yourself."

"Thank-you," she replies.

They both climb out and make their way to where the rig is parked on the other side of the garage. Toast is looking over the controls inside.

"Found a car," Furiosa calls out from the ground. "I'll be joining you tomorrow."

"Need a wingman?" asks a male voice.

Toast blinks twice before leaning out the window. "Thought you were gone."

"Been down here," he replies.

"Yeah," she replies to his earlier question, "You can ride with me." Her eyes go distant as she flashes back to the day they met. "I seem to recall you being handy in a fight." They share a look that is not quite a grin.

The next day, they ride out together. The run is uneventful, and Max and Toast share the drive in companionable silence. Either she is unwilling to pry into what went on between Furiosa and himself, or she doesn't care. Either way, he is grateful for the lack of interrogation.

Fury takes his car and rides escort, and no one criticises her for splitting from the group for a few minutes to open up the Mach 1 and blaze across the sand. The speed and the sound of the engine and simply being in her own company restores her sanity and soothes her soul.

Max smiles as he sees the cloud of dust she and his car raise as she enjoys her first taste of freedom in ages.

Those who know her can see the difference immediately when they return, and it is decided by general consensus that she will ride out more often.

The Dag seeks him out, punching him hard in the arm. "That's for pretending to leave!" she yells before storming off.

It takes days before she speaks to him again, and weeks before they fall back into the easy amity from before. It becomes a regular sight to see him holding Verdant while her mother is trying to get things done. Max doesn't mind. He doesn't mind at all.

He gets himself added to the watch rotation on the wall. Slowly, he becomes known in wider and wider circles. He is Max to more than just the Sisters and the Vuvalini now. He still sleeps in his car. It allows him a measure of privacy that he still craves.

For those he returned with in Immortan Joe's car nearly a year ago, his continued presence is no longer a novelty. They smile, and speak a few words, and go on their way. He becomes like any other person who lives within the walls.

He stays, and becomes more a part of the Citadel than he is adjunct to Furiosa. They speak on occasion, or nod across a crowd, but rarely does either seek the other out.

The ache that settled into her chest with his absence is gone, as is the hollow place he left. He is near, and safe, and that is enough for her. She wonders how she possibly managed to not see him for those weeks. Now she can find him unerringly in a crowd without ever having to search. She somehow knows precisely where he is whenever he is near. She feels him like her metal arm: separate, yet a part of her.

The only time she truly misses him is in the confined space of her room at night. It feels too-large and empty without his steady presence within.

She doesn't know if he will ever return here, and that is the only thing that makes her sad. She feels peace that he has stayed. Relief that he is alive, and that she knows this every day. Pride that he is forming his own connections here in the Citadel.

And sad, only for brief moments, that what they briefly shared in the deepest recesses of her soul, she cannot have.

xxxxxxxxxx

Max hasn't returned to the upper level since he moved himself out of Fury's room. He belongs down here in the sand with the former Wretched, not up there among the green. He works hard, every day, and does his part for the people here.

He even went to the infirmary and offered his services as a blood donor, giving Furiosa's continuing health as a reference. Addams has taken him up on the offer a couple of times, and he and the gruff doctor have formed a tenuous, snarky friendship.

Capable thinks it's hilarious.

At least the doctor has stopped threatening to have him restrained.

On a day like any other, one of those manning the wall alongside him mentions that it has been a full year exactly since the liberation of the Citadel. There is no grand communal celebration, but small pockets of those who live here gather and tell the tale of the triumphant return of their Furiosa.

He listens from beyond the circle, and remembers.

He remembers it all: Being strapped to the front of a car. Escaping his fate as a Blood Bag. Stealing the rig. Angharad's death. Finding the Vuvalini. His insane plan to return and take the Citadel. Furiosa's near-death. Speaking his own name in hushed tones over her too-still form.

And he knows it is time.

He pulls his gear back together and stuffs it in the green duffle. Running an affectionate hand over the fender of his Mach 1, he whispers a promise to return. In the fading light of dusk, he skirts the celebrating groups of people and makes his way to the cage, riding it up to the top. He skulks through the dim passages, trying to avoid people on the way. He'd rather leave the questions for later.

He passes the hanging troughs and walks down the round tunnel. There is no one in the vault at this time of night.

 _Good._

He drops the bag from his shoulder and takes a seat next to the doorway to the room that was theirs.

He waits.

She does not keep him long; only minutes later she strides through the opening with purpose, turning sharply to her worktable and riffling through the detritus there, muttering to herself all the while.

She nearly misses him, turning to head back the way she came. She registers something off about the room just as she is exiting and turns slowly from the circular opening.

His form is still in the dim light, but his eyes are open. He is watching her.

"Max?" she asks, distantly afraid her subconscious has dreamed him up in her current state of exhaustion.

"Mmm," he replies.

"Why are you here?" The words hold no accusation, but she needs clarity.

He pushes to his feet and comes to stand before her. "I thought about what you said."

She cocks her head. "Which part?"

It has been a couple of months since that conversation. She remembers, but wonders if the words she found relevant were the ones he does.

"You asked me what I would do if you died."

He says the words calmly, softly, as though it is something he has been considering for a while.

Because he has.

She stuffs the object she retrieved from her worktable into a cargo pocket on her thigh and turns to walk among the plants beneath the dome. He keeps pace next to her.

"And…"

He takes a deep breath and drags a hand through his hair. "It wouldn't be easy. I would be devastated." He makes the admission calmly, as though he was speaking of the weather. It is a simple fact of his existence. "I would do anything in my power to protect you, or to save you." He holds up a hand when she makes to interrupt. "But if you die, I will stay here. I will protect your people. I have a place here now, and that doesn't disappear with you." He stares out through the glass at the stars. "What you've made here, it might be gone tomorrow, or in a week, or a month or a year. But it's good. Worth protecting. And if it brings people hope it was worth it, however long."

"I thought you said hope was a mistake."

"You showed me otherwise. Not to mention, if running this place for a year hasn't driven you insane, nothing will."

He made a joke. Max has made a joke. Fury stares at him, gaping.

He spies her expression out of the corner of his eye. "What?" he asks.

He finds that she is standing in front of him, with her hand at the back of his neck. Their foreheads are pressed together and she is smiling so brightly it lights up his world. "It's good to have you back," she says simply.

He has no defence against her, and finds himself smiling in return.

"Look," she says. "There's a problem with the water pump, and I have to go. Will you be here when I get back?"

He nods. "I'll walk around up here. It's been a while."

She turns and jogs back towards the entrance, leaving him staring out the windows.

He stays there for a long time before making his way back to her bench with the intention of sitting down on her stool and waiting there. It takes a few minutes before he notices his bag is gone.

He stands, turning a circle. It is nowhere in sight.

He did not move it, and the only other person in the vault was Fury.

He stands, and his feet carry him to the doorway of her room. Reluctantly, he enters, seeing it just the same as he left it, save a woven grey bracelet on the dresser. The sight of it gives him a pang. He hadn't noticed she'd taken it off.

But she hasn't thrown it away, so its presence here must mean something.

His green duffle bag is sitting on the bed.

It means everything _._

He wanders around the vault, dragging his fingers along leaf edges and breathing in the scent of the green. He's not sure when it became the smell of home.

He is tired and finally settles back to where he waited before, seated next to the doorway to her room with his legs stretched out before him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

That is how she finds him, with his head lolling on his chest, fast asleep. She comes to one knee by his side and raises a hand to his cheek. "Wake up Max," she says gently.

His head comes up and his eyes open. Seeing her there, face inches from his, he smiles. "Fury," he breathes, and her name is like a prayer.

"Come to bed, Max," she says, rising to her feet and offering him a hand up.

He takes it, lurching to a stand with her as an anchor. She doesn't let go as she leads him into their room.

As easy as that, it is theirs once more. He shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it on the chair. She removes her prosthetic and hangs it on its hook. They kick off their boots and lay down together with their arms and legs tangled, pressed as tightly as they can get with their clothes still on.

As they have before.

As they will for the rest of their lives. However long that will be.

"Missed you," he whispers into her throat.

She kisses his forehead. "We don't have to do that anymore."

He smiles.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

 _ **A/N: Well, that's it. It was a helluva ride for me. I've never written so much in so little time. I hope this chapter wasn't too discordant with the rest, but since it took place over a couple of months instead of a day like the others, it needed to be a bit different. Thank you so much for taking the time to read. If you liked it, please add it to your favourites list and take the time to write a review. To all those who have followed, favourited, and posted a review, thank you so very much. That stuff makes my day.**_


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